[row][span4]Off the bike, I had a great week, with the centrepiece being my 50th birthday on Wednesday. The likelihood is that Iâve passed the halfway mark, and yet I donât feel that Iâm facing a decline. Rather, I have a strong feeling of genesis. My âidea springâ hasnât stopped producing fresh concepts. And, after 50 years of life, I have a huge store of âhistoryâ that can be repurposed in a productive way. A kind of upcycling or recycling, for want of a better expression.
Isnât it interesting how the word that denotes the origin of mighty rivers (i.e. spring) should be same as the word for the season in which life is reborn? The energy implicit in spring (as in âjumpâ) and spring (coiled metal with elastic properties) is a beautiful part of the metaphor.
I didnât feel a great amount of energy in my legs at the start of the week. In fact, the âeasy 60 minute spinâ on the programme for Tuesday was pretty much all I was capable of after the previous weekâs riding. I was still behind the eight ball on Thursday, for the five one-minute build-ups I had to do (along with warm-up and cool-down). Monday and Tuesdayâs conditioning sessions followed the usual pattern of deadlifts, lunges and squats, along with mobility exercises.
Nevertheless, I approached Saturdayâs STBB 60km race around (and up) the Bottelary Hills feeling positive. I stoically pedalled my way through the rain, mentally banishing the cold, and then skidding through the resulting mud. I actually felt pretty strong in the last half, consoling myself with the thought that even if I was slower, at least my endurance had improved (or so I thought while I was riding).
[/span4][span4]Iâm trying to compare 2016 performances with 2016 only, but taking 40 minutes longer on this yearâs race (over almost exactly the same course) compared with 2015, was more than a little disheartening. The first half took 10 minutes (or 8%) longer, which suggests that the mud on the second half of the route must have contributed to the overall 40 minutes.
Nevertheless, there were a few Strava PRs on downhill sections before it all got too wet to go flying down the slopes.
Iâd had five or six hours of interrupted sleep on Friday night, and the same on Thursday and Wednesday. Iâm hoping that the disappointing result was the product of that fatigue, added to a body not yet fully recovered from the previous weekâs training.
For someone who is just hoping to finish the Epic without too much pain, it shouldnât matter how fast Iâm riding prep races. However, with the amount of time thatâs going into training, Iâm looking for indications that the effort is paying off.
Shelleyâs poem Ode to the West Wind, which has rebirth as its central theme, ends with the line: âIf Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?â From this I take my cue. In the absence of positive reinforcement Iâll just keep following the process, and trusting that itâs going to deliver a good result!
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