Some Days It Just Isn't There.
I woke up this morning and felt pretty good. Not fantastic, but not off either. It pretty much felt like your average day.
I kitted up, checked the various cycling websites (per my structured performance procrastination training plan), then got on the trainer and fired up Zwift.
Within a few minutes I knew I wasn't going to be fun.
I really didn't have it in the legs. My heart rate was a couple ranges higher than the level of work being performed should push it. I jumped on the pedals and the pedals giggled at me. "Stop it. That tickles." I tried a steady, moderate effort and eventually ran out of steam. I tried ramping up to find a comfortable range and failed again.
The only thing I generated was a lot of sweat and animalistic grunting noises.
Coming to the end of a training block, this sort of thing isn't all that rare for me. I can't pinpoint the day when my body is going to shut down and pout in the corner. I can ballpark it, but a whole lot of factors play into when it all comes crashing down around my ears, and not all of them are tracked by my expensive training software. Sometimes my body fails to live up to my mind's expectations. Actually, given that I am prone to delusions, most of the time my body fails to live up to my mind's expectations.
That's perfectly fine. I'm not paid to ride my bike. As long as the space between my ears is trending upward, the rest of it really doesn't matter. Obviously the place where a brain would normally go can be affected by negative trends, but for the most part it's all about enjoying whatever it is you're doing.
After the initial steady upward performance progression I made for the first few years of training, I learned to accept the cycles as part of the process. The give-and-take is healthy and normal. At this point, a single bright point in an otherwise dismal year is enough. I can point to it and tell myself that I'm not done yet. If you ride and race enough, sooner or later you stumble across a glimmer of hope. My strategy is to just keep fumbling around in the dark until you do.
A couple days of light workouts, maybe a rest day in there, and I'll be overdoing it again.
Hakuna matata, bitches.
I kitted up, checked the various cycling websites (per my structured performance procrastination training plan), then got on the trainer and fired up Zwift.
Within a few minutes I knew I wasn't going to be fun.
I really didn't have it in the legs. My heart rate was a couple ranges higher than the level of work being performed should push it. I jumped on the pedals and the pedals giggled at me. "Stop it. That tickles." I tried a steady, moderate effort and eventually ran out of steam. I tried ramping up to find a comfortable range and failed again.
The only thing I generated was a lot of sweat and animalistic grunting noises.
Coming to the end of a training block, this sort of thing isn't all that rare for me. I can't pinpoint the day when my body is going to shut down and pout in the corner. I can ballpark it, but a whole lot of factors play into when it all comes crashing down around my ears, and not all of them are tracked by my expensive training software. Sometimes my body fails to live up to my mind's expectations. Actually, given that I am prone to delusions, most of the time my body fails to live up to my mind's expectations.
That's perfectly fine. I'm not paid to ride my bike. As long as the space between my ears is trending upward, the rest of it really doesn't matter. Obviously the place where a brain would normally go can be affected by negative trends, but for the most part it's all about enjoying whatever it is you're doing.
After the initial steady upward performance progression I made for the first few years of training, I learned to accept the cycles as part of the process. The give-and-take is healthy and normal. At this point, a single bright point in an otherwise dismal year is enough. I can point to it and tell myself that I'm not done yet. If you ride and race enough, sooner or later you stumble across a glimmer of hope. My strategy is to just keep fumbling around in the dark until you do.
A couple days of light workouts, maybe a rest day in there, and I'll be overdoing it again.
Hakuna matata, bitches.
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