Chasing Numbers.
My recent three days of non-bike-related activity resulted in an eight-point drop in my squiggly lines. To put that in context, it usually takes me a week or more of chugging along at off-season training loads to make the squiggly lines go up a couple points. So, I basically erased a months worth of work in three days.
Except I didn't.
First, it wasn't like I was laying around. I was on my feet, lifting and cutting and moving and fitting stuff all day long. Problem is, I have no good way to track that sort of activity, so my squiggly lines don't know the difference. They just assume I'm a sloth, and most times they would be justified in making that assumption. They also assume that I'm well-rested, which I'm not. I'm bone-tired. That's the problem with incomplete data sets, and I'm fairly sure Hillary Clinton would probably agree with me. You put too much faith in them, and they will let you down. Every. Single. Time.
The real danger is that we're wired to get that little dopamine hit when we get good data, so we keep playing along, placing an inordinate amount of importance on what the numbers are telling us, even if the numbers are just a bunch of moronic fucktards that have no basis on reality.
It's like when I started tracking ride data. I didn't have anything more than a bike computer which told me stuff like time, speed, and distance. I'd enter it into some application, and I would be told I burned 1500 calories an hour. In reality, the only way I'm going to burn 1500 calories in an hour is to light one of my fat rolls on fire. Imagine my shock when I started training with heart rate, and the application said I only burned 1000 calories for a similar workout. I knew I was working much harder, but I wasn't getting the same result. Then I added power, and the number dropped to 750 calories. Little by little, as I added new data points and developed a performance profile, the squiggly lines approached something similar to reality. It still isn't perfect, but I'm sure once I start tracking Post-Ride-Poop-Metrics™ the full picture will come into focus.
Thing is, I don't think any amount of tracking is going to tell me if I'm going to have fun or a given ride. It might tell me if I'm relatively fresh, but only if non-tracked data points don't interfere. It won't warn me that my wife is going to kill me if I get on my damn bike and ride for four hours instead of helping her with the kids. It's not going to tell me if I'm going to eat it in a given race, although it will be sure to tell me I'm lazy in the weeks afterwards.
I get so wrapped up in making the data look good that sometimes I forget how full of shit data can be.
So, I'm going to try to step away and let the squiggly lines do whatever they want to do. If they go up, great. If they go down, great. I'll still dutifully download my Garmin after every ride, but I'm going to make a real effort not to stress about it. Maybe I'll look at them later and see what worked and what didn't, but mostly I'm going to just ride by feel. When I'm tired, I won't ride. When the legs feel good, I'll do my best to pound them into the ground.
I doubt this will make me a better rider, but I hope it will make me a happier one. Actually, I guess a happier rider is a better rider. Maybe not faster or more skilled, but since nobody is paying me to ride, I guess happy is a pretty good goal to shoot for.
Certainly better than a squiggly line.
Except I didn't.
First, it wasn't like I was laying around. I was on my feet, lifting and cutting and moving and fitting stuff all day long. Problem is, I have no good way to track that sort of activity, so my squiggly lines don't know the difference. They just assume I'm a sloth, and most times they would be justified in making that assumption. They also assume that I'm well-rested, which I'm not. I'm bone-tired. That's the problem with incomplete data sets, and I'm fairly sure Hillary Clinton would probably agree with me. You put too much faith in them, and they will let you down. Every. Single. Time.
The real danger is that we're wired to get that little dopamine hit when we get good data, so we keep playing along, placing an inordinate amount of importance on what the numbers are telling us, even if the numbers are just a bunch of moronic fucktards that have no basis on reality.
It's like when I started tracking ride data. I didn't have anything more than a bike computer which told me stuff like time, speed, and distance. I'd enter it into some application, and I would be told I burned 1500 calories an hour. In reality, the only way I'm going to burn 1500 calories in an hour is to light one of my fat rolls on fire. Imagine my shock when I started training with heart rate, and the application said I only burned 1000 calories for a similar workout. I knew I was working much harder, but I wasn't getting the same result. Then I added power, and the number dropped to 750 calories. Little by little, as I added new data points and developed a performance profile, the squiggly lines approached something similar to reality. It still isn't perfect, but I'm sure once I start tracking Post-Ride-Poop-Metrics™ the full picture will come into focus.
Thing is, I don't think any amount of tracking is going to tell me if I'm going to have fun or a given ride. It might tell me if I'm relatively fresh, but only if non-tracked data points don't interfere. It won't warn me that my wife is going to kill me if I get on my damn bike and ride for four hours instead of helping her with the kids. It's not going to tell me if I'm going to eat it in a given race, although it will be sure to tell me I'm lazy in the weeks afterwards.
I get so wrapped up in making the data look good that sometimes I forget how full of shit data can be.
So, I'm going to try to step away and let the squiggly lines do whatever they want to do. If they go up, great. If they go down, great. I'll still dutifully download my Garmin after every ride, but I'm going to make a real effort not to stress about it. Maybe I'll look at them later and see what worked and what didn't, but mostly I'm going to just ride by feel. When I'm tired, I won't ride. When the legs feel good, I'll do my best to pound them into the ground.
I doubt this will make me a better rider, but I hope it will make me a happier one. Actually, I guess a happier rider is a better rider. Maybe not faster or more skilled, but since nobody is paying me to ride, I guess happy is a pretty good goal to shoot for.
Certainly better than a squiggly line.
Comments
Post a Comment