Shut Up, Legs!

Last night during gal time, one of my friends recounted her workout from earlier in the day. We are all at different stages of training for different goals, so swapping workout schedules and such is (somewhat sadly) fun for us. On this particular day, she was supposed to do a hard running interval workout, which included more than one red-line area heart rate bracket. Summers here in Greensboro are never forgiving, and the intensity combined with the heat and humidity forced her to throw in the towel a bit early.

"I just had to listen to my body." And rightly so, as she could have passed out from heat exhaustion.

Cyclists are rarely so smart.

Today was my own version of purgatory on the bike: AT Intervals, 2x30 minutes of them. I have a love/hate relationship with this workout, as I know it makes me SO much stronger, and when they go good they go GOOD. But when they go not good, they make me feel a little loopy afterwards, and are extremely hard to slog through.

As I spun up my heartrate, I could feel my legs were a little heavy, the number on the monitor a little slow to respond. It was not going to be one of the good days.

Now I'm never a pretty picture when doing this. I sweat profusely. I mean... a lot of sweat. I'm hunkered down with my mouth hanging open, headphones on, usually some sort of sweatband (did I mention I sweat a lot?) wrapped around my head, towel underneath me to protect the hardwood floors, and a rag draped over the bars that I blindly reach for when the salt dripping into my eyes starts to sting too much.

So there I was. Not having fun. Looking stupid and gross. And my body was telling me to stop. Not very loudly, certainly not as loudly as it does on some of the group rides I try, or the races I've attempted, but there was a little voice trying to get my legs to stop pedaling.

Of course, I didn't. I finished the workout with the numbers maybe a bit lower than I would have liked but still within acceptable parameters (that was for my coach in case he was wondering :)

But the thought occurred to me. With this sport comes pain. If you want to be a good cyclist, and certainly if you want to improve, you will suffer for it. There will be times when every cell is screaming at you to STOP. FOR GOD SAKES HAVE MERCY AND STOP MOVING YOUR LEGS.

But we don't. We push on, push over, and keep going. And when we don't, when we succumb to the voice, more often than not we regret it later, knowing that if we had just suffered a little longer, stayed in the pain cave for a few more minutes (even seconds) we could have climbed the hill or bridged the gap or won the sprint. And we kick ourselves for it.

This is why Jens Voigt's famous, "Shut up, Legs!" quote resonates so clearly for us. It is the cleanest, simplest way of describing what a cyclist goes through to get better, to win, to challenge themselves. We don't listen to our bodies. We tell our bodies to shut up.

Which is both part of the beauty and the stupidity of the sport. And also why all cyclists are, simultaneously, beautiful and stupid.

Jens Voigt, after crashing at last year's Tour and with no team car/spare bike in site, grabbed a bike 4 sizes too small for him w/ old fashioned toe clips from a kid in the crowd and caught back up to the peloton.

SHUT UP, LEGS!

There is no "I" in Team

The thing about racing that's ultimately so rewarding is the mental game that's played out right before your eyes. The winner is not always the strongest cyclist. The winner is the person who can read the race, choose the right wheel, go with the right break, and know which effort is the right effort to make. The winning team is the team who can control the pace, strategize, choose the right person to support.

During my first Tour de France as a cyclist, nothing surprised me more than to learn that all those people in the peloton (new vocabulary, also) weren't riding for themselves. It wasn't like a horse race, where all 100+ racers wanted to be number one. Each team had only one person who they were sworn to protect, and going through seven levels of hell for this person stood as just another day on the tour.

Domestiques, as they are called, are the workhorses of every team. They go to the team cars for water/food and then ride BACK UP into the peloton to deliver it. They turn themselves inside out on the climbs so the leader can vampire onto their rear wheel. Then there are those who lead out the sprinters, peeling off one by one and fading to the back while their teammate goes for the glory. On the flipside, the special chosen one, or GC, has the enormous pressure of making good on their teammates' efforts and actually winning the stage or race.

Yes, cycling, lo and behold, is a team sport.

Except when you're not on a team.

A few weeks ago, I, Sophie Ballo, humbly returned to the world of racing, this time in a road format rather than a criterium, even though I think I'm actually more suited to the latter.

For my first race, as I pulled up to the starting line amid a large group of women for a smallish road event, I noticed an awful lot of the same jersey. Teams. Me? Solo. The difference? I've got to try and make the whole peloton my team, since there's nobody to make sure I'm in the right place at the right time but...me.

Twice now I've attempted to race. Once I was caught with my pants down when the move was made. The second time I just couldn't stay with the pace and again was off the back.

The problem with those mistakes is that the race? The true race? Bam. THAT was the race. Right there. As soon as the blunder occurred, my race was essentially over, and all that remained was a training ride. That's where your mental power has to kick in. I've got to conjure up the willpower to absolutely kill myself in order to make sure I finish the whole race this time.

Reading a race. Knowing where to be, when to be there, and then having the legs for the follow through. Both fortunately and unfortunately, it's only something you learn through trial and error.

This time, though, I'm hoping for a little more trial and a little less error.

Getting the Drop on your ride

Cycling is somewhat of a masochist's dream sport, with rights of passage full of pain and/or humiliation. Falling over for the first (second, third, millionth) time in your clipless pedals. Bonking. Your first saddle sore. And ah yes, the first time you get dropped.

What's not here is just as important as what's is, and the whole phrase is actually getting dropped (from the group ride/race). This means that, try as you might, the bikes in front of you start whittling away in the distance as you seemingly track stand on the road. You are alone in a barren wasteland of shame. You couldn't cut it. You've been dropped.

The first time I ever was dropped, if you recall (what? You mean you can't INSTANTLY remember? For shame) was during my accidental century, when I thought an additional 30 miles would be a good idea and showed up for what turned out to be a hammerfest of sorts. I had to resort to door knocking to find my way back to the parking lot.

But if cycling really is a masochist's dream, then the mantra of cycling would be "Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." In many many respects, getting dropped fits perfectly into this creed.

Par example.

I'm trying to step up my own game. In Austin, I had a major wake up call after getting spit off of a large group ride made up of mostly racing or former racing men. I want to be the best cyclist I am capable of being, and hopefully, that will be a cyclist who can hold her own against the boys; a forced to be reckoned with on the starting line.

And one of the best ways to attain this goal?

Get dropped.

I'm currently riding in rides that are slightly out of my league. The pace I can keep up with for short distances, and the distances I can ride at slower paces, but I'm attempting to put the two together. Ride 50+ miles at a 22+ mph average. Right now? 50+ miles at 20 is fine. 30 miles at 22 is fine. The two together? Not so fine. Thus, after about one and a half hours, always on some sort of little climb, I find myself falling off the wheel in front of me and slipping behind as the boys race ahead.

Each week, I hang on a little longer and ride a little better. Each week I get more comfortable in the paceline. Each week I push myself mentally a bit more (the mental game is probably more than half the picture; you have to want to put yourself through sections of hell in order to enjoy longer sections of heck). And each week, I know I'm making myself a stronger cyclist.

Not that I want to get dropped forever. After all, if the point is to get stronger, the longer point is to get strong enough that I make it back to the parking lot with the group.

In the meantime, though, I've gotten a GPS computer.

No more door knocking for me.