Slacker!

Friday’s ride to work hinted at something I’ve been suspecting for a while, chiefly that I’ve been slacking.  And that I need to make some adjustments to the bike’s setup.  That same day I had a rewarding ride home despite not setting any records or finding any rabbits.

I’d let a lack of sleep, energy and the ever-present headwind slowly re-set my effort level from panting-and-sweating to I-put-some-effort-in.  Sure it was a real effort and you couldn’t say I wasn’t trying at all but it was far from my best efforts.  This all-out effort was one of the chief rewards I (re)discovered when I started riding this summer and I’d been letting it slip away.

Now I know, you can’t always perform at that level – there are days when nutrition, sleep, motivation and / or any number of other factors conspire to bring you down a notch or two.  I get that.  The difference – for me – is that while you need recovery days to, well, recover, you don’t grow by putting in a good effort – that’s not enough.  The mind and body and their remarkable adaptability will grow to perform almost any task you continue to throw at it.  The brain’s now-accepted plasticity means it will devote more physical brain real-estate to a task that has received focused effort and attention be it math, martial arts or cycling.  Anyone who’s ever done anything physical – shovelling dirt all summer, lifting weights in the gym, stone mason (okay that might be a long shot all things considered – lost art that one) – knows that your ability to perform the task after a few months of work is vastly improved.  Your mind and body have adapted.   Cool.

However, the downside to the adaptability is it’s conservation of energy.  It takes effort and energy to change – to grow new muscles, to fire more neurons and bridge more synaptic gaps – this is all energy intensive.  What does this mean?  It means you’re a bit like your co-worker who always does everything required, but never works overtime, never volunteers for extra work, never moves outside what you’ve asked of them.  Adaptation comes to a halt as soon as you give it the signal that hey – we’re good enough now thanks.  Progress comes to a halt.  You must push the bounds to grow.

As I rode out this morning, a couple of factors conspired to push me back into the panting-and-sweating zone from what has become my effortful-yet-casual mode of late.  I found myself pushing harder than I had in weeks, re-discovering the Grail zone in the process along the way.  As I approached the 8th Ave overpass, another rider shot in ahead of me having come down from my right on the far side of the overpass.  His quick cadence implied that he was at least an attentive cyclist and the growing gap confirmed his speed was slightly faster than mine.  I briefly pondered following him but you know how that goes – we’re going the same direction, he’s not leaving me in the dust and therefore I must try.

I thought I was going to lose him on a couple of occasions as he managed to put some distance between us before I sorted out the best gear to reel him in.   I slowly bridged the gap and when I’d caught up to him, it occurred to me that I might not have it in me to get the job done.  It was not a quick pass and required an unsuccessful attempt at looking casual as we rode side by side for the eternity it took to get by.  I found a surprise burst of energy as he moved into my peripheral vision so I picked up my pace again, dropping him as best I could before taking my exit and heading east, while hoping he was headed west so I wouldn’t have to burn myself completely trying to keep my lead.

My point?  Good question.  Oh yes – that I wouldn’t have pulled that off if I hadn’t been in push-to-adapt mode.  Good enough wasn’t going to cut it.  The best part?  I felt fantastic all morning and that win – petty as it might be – fuelled my good mood (and sarcasm) all day.  I look forward to another adventure with the Grail tomorrow (assuming whatever sickness that is presently ravaging my wife is gone and I actually get out of the house – I arrived home this evening to find her sicker than I’ve ever seen her).

Hunting Rabbits is for Everyone

I know what you’re thinking – that  chasing rabbits is immature.  The domain of boys and men pretending to be relevant and attractive to 20-year-old women.  I’m not a woman so I can only offer two perspectives – that borne of knowing (sort of) what goes on in my own head and that of my observations of others (admittedly filtered through my own head which makes it mine…so that’s really just one perspective).

Unless you’re constantly surrounded by riders significantly more able than you and particularly if, like me, you ride 99.9% of the time alone, you begin to develop delusions of your ability.  I often find myself thinking “yeah – that’s right, I did just pass you like that, because I can”, while completely ignoring that they’re pushing their bike with a flat tire, thereby reinforcing my imaginary super-cyclist powers.  My favourite though is to be howling along the path with a wicked tailwind while watching all of the on-coming cyclists suffering, struggling mightily to keep above a jogging pace as their headwind acts like molasses.  This really inflates one’s illusory talent.

So with all of this pent-up talent inside, it’s only natural that I would want to find another rider and pass them.  In the beginning I was content to ride down anyone and took great pleasure in the pass irrespective of the age or condition of the rider.  Of course not being able to catch the rider towing a two-child trailer up a hill…that’s not something we need to re-visit.  Or visit.  Where was I?  Oh yes, chasing rabbits.  As my condition has improved over the summer, passing riders who aren’t trying has lost its reward.  I still try (well duh – they’re on a bike, I’m on a bike, they’re in front of me – who wouldn’t try?) to catch and pass them, but when I pull up beside them and notice they’re wearing a heavy wool trench coat, their high-heels and are riding a Townie it’s not the win I was looking for.  Unless they’re all sweaty and out of breath.  Hey – a wolf doesn’t pass up a meal just because the rabbit is missing a leg.  Not that I’m a wolf…

With the cooler weather comes the dwindling traffic  thereby causing an increase in the percentage of more serious riders.  This means fewer opportunities, but better chases.  I’m still not certain that I passed Bearded Single Speed legitimately because he finally cracked or if he simply didn’t want to ride beside me any farther.  Of these more serious riders, I routinely see two women, always going the opposite direction to my own.  Given their velocities I suspect I wouldn’t catch them if we were travelling in the same direction and that they would catch and drop me with relative ease.

One in particular who, for reasons I can’t fathom, reminds me of an acquaintance I met when we hired her to work our motorcycle booth during the Stampede.  Taisa rides but recently left town thereby removing the last 1% of possibility it was her.  When I see this unknown-yet-familiar rider, she is always riding hard and fast – determined.

Which brings me to my point…finally.  I was fighting my way home in the omnipresent headwind the other day trying to talk myself into finding some positive benefit to it (the wind, not the ride).  I’d earlier passed one of the aforementioned casual riders but had had the path to myself and my wandering mind for the bulk of things.  As I approached the Trans Canada, a rider appeared coming towards me in full tuck, in the drops and pedaling furiously with full advantage of the tailwind and I was immediately envious.  I took this all in within the split-second it took for her to appear.  Right on his wheel.

You’re probably asking yourself how I knew she was on his wheel rather than having just been passed.  Two things.  First, the path at that point is a blind, slightly uphill S-bend with a relatively narrow path and a fence on either side.  Second, she had a heretofore unseen gigantic grin on her face.  If he’d passed her on that bend, it would have been a totally uncool move by all measures and she would not have been smiling.  No – that was the enormous, predatory grin of a successful hunt.   The grin of a predator who knows the kill is at hand and the prey theirs despite their thrashing about.  It was, in the purest of moments and expressions, everything that hunting rabbits is all about.

The chase is not a male thing at all.  It’s a for-those-with-drive thing.  It’s awesome.

The Quest for the Holy Cyclist Grail

I rode to work with a headwind today.  I rode home with one too.  That is decidedly uncool – one shouldn’t be forced to ride with a headwind in both directions.  I keep telling myself it will amount to excellent training come the change of season from windy to still windy season.  It’s not the speed of the wind that’s changed – it’s the direction relative to my own – which is suddenly causing me grief.  I’m looking forward to the days of mostly tailwind both directions.

So it was that I was heading home and thinking that I’d not had a good rabbit chase since the weather had taken a rather permanent turn to cold mornings and cool afternoons.  The less determined / smarter cyclists have parked their bikes and returned to their BMWs until the sun returns and warms things up in the spring.  The reduced volume means reduced opportunities.  It also means when the opportunities come, the object of the chase is likely to be that much more determined to drop his (or her) pursuer.  Such is the position I found myself in this evening as I tried to reel in the rider in front of me.

I spotted him as his path from downtown and my own  both turn to head north but are separated by the canal.  At this point he had the advantage as his path carries on straight and I have to cross the canal before tucking in behind him.  He had a pretty good pace going and I wasn’t sure whether I was up to the chase however being me I quickly determined that I was unable to ignore the fact that he was out front and not dropping me any further behind.  I was able to put a half-hearted and half-assed effort into playing the game.  It occurred to me more than once that he might be one of those who enjoys allowing himself to be painstakingly  reeled in and then dropping his pursuer when they finally get close.  We would see.

I managed to maintain my half-assed effort and was rewarded with half-assed results – go figure.  By the time we got to the Trans Canada, he was roughly that distance away – him under the north overpass, me under the south.  He looked back to check my position as he wove through the train gate and headed up my nemesis hill.  As I made my way through the gate it occurred to me that I was feeling pretty good though still skirting around the zone and never quite in it.

I stepped up my effort and found my lungs, which is to say I worked up a good panting – as I continued to chase him.  I’d almost dismissed the idea of catching him given my particular relationship with this hill but I kept at it if for no other reason than to knock some of this hill off.  As we reached the end of the climb he was less than 10 meters in front of me.

This was as close as I would get to him sadly.  I’d all but exhausted myself and had to watch as he slowly drifted further and further away, putting another cyclist between us.  It took me more distance than I care to note before I caught the intermediate rider and I was not over-joyed to see I’d had to expend great (non-zone) effort to catch a bearded guy riding a single-speed.  Maybe I should grow a beard.

A recent commute home had also been in a stiff headwind with some sprinkling rain here and there in less-than-warm temps if I recall.  Rather than being disappointed about it, I put my head down, my man-pants on and got to work.  I pedaled as fast as I could for as long as I could and ignored the rest of the world.  When I got home I felt fantastic and was certain I’d just laid down a solid time for the trip.  I was shocked to find it was in fact typical of my miserable headwind rides.  Genuinely.  It didn’t bother me in the least however, just left me surprised.  If you were to ask me “how was the ride home”, I’d respond “awesome!”.  Question is, how do I make every miserable headwind-plagued ride an awesome ride in the zone?