July 6, 2009
Naps I nearly took today: 3
Times I opened the refrigerator hoping that I would suddenly find something other than eggs and cottage cheese to eat: 18 (we were out of town all weekend)
Issues I have with Betty Rock’s new triple chocolate chip cookie recipe: 1 (but it’s a big one … they’re totally inconsistent. It can be the best cookie you’ve ever had or the most mediocre cookie you’ve ever had. Figure it out one way or the other. Please.)
So I know everyone’s been waiting to hear about how I did at the Tour de Trainer last week. Well, the short answer is, of course, “I ruled.” After all, it’s hard not to rule when you’re only competing against yourself.
Four stages. Three days. One Kinetic Rock-n-Roll Road indoor trainer. Half a brain.
It was a feat of mental toughness almost on par with skiing uphill for 24 hours. Nearly six hours – Six. Hours. – on a trainer in the middle of a beautiful June day? Look up mental toughness in any dictionary and I wouldn’t be surprised if you found that. Sure, Tour de France riders might have 3000-some kilometers to do over three weeks, but I’d take Mont Ventoux ten times over six hours on a trainer any day.
Catching a bit of a rest after bridging to the lead pack.
Did I mention that the six-hour day was right on the heels of two days that totaled over six hours themselves. That makes 13-some hours over three days. On an indoor trainer. At the end of June. With beautiful weather outside. Does this make me crazy?
I didn’t devise the Tour de Trainer to gauge my sanity or see if I was capable of swallowing my own bile for hours on end, but because a broken collarbone has had me riding indoors since the middle of June. The first week-and-a-half weren’t horrible because 1.) Since I couldn’t weight the arm attached to the broken collarbone, the “workouts” were generally short and 2.) I discovered the first (and second) season(s) of The Wire at the Teton County Library.
Going into the second full week post-surgery though, I could weight the handlebars equally with both hands. Which, of course, to me, meant I was ready to ride outside. My doctor – who did a very neat job of stitching me up — felt differently though. Trying – for once – to be a mostly compliant patient, I promised I’d keep my training indoors. He asked for a month. I told him I could give him another week.
But I needed something new to get me through this week. The gears in my head immediately went into overdrive. What – besides watch episode after episode of The Wire — could I do to get myself through another week of indoor riding? Was there any way I could make it interesting? Is there anything I could do to make it a week that counted?
It may have taken others longer than the walk through the waiting room at Teton Orthopaedics to come up with the idea – if they ever would — of taking their favorite stage race and bringing it inside, but, as I’ve already explained, when it comes to boredom and repetition in athletics, I’m a superstar. Idiotic ideas come to me naturally. Easily.
Tour de Trainer – based on The Elkhorn Classic – started the next day. I pretended to get dropped and power up rollers. I imagined attacking, counter-attacking, and bridging between groups. Suring the Tour de Trainer’s imaginary 11-kilometer time trial I was on the rivet for 25 minutes. Still, by the pretend third stage – a 45-minute crit with episodes of Arrested Development to distract me from the lactic acid building in my legs – I was over it. (Although I did like the fact that “feeds” could include toasted Thomas’ English muffins with peanut butter and Nutella.) But, I pedaled on, determined to complete this torture I had devised and set myself to.
Half-way through the final day (“half-way” being about 2 hours, 45 minutes), my eyes had rolled to the back of my head and I wanted it to be over more than I’ve ever wanted anything to be over before. (And that includes an Elk Mountain Grand Traverse in which, thanks to the first asthma attack of my life, the last eight miles took my teammate and myself as long to do as did the first 37 miles.)
But, because I am a—perhaps even the – Stubbornness Superstar, I didn’t end it, even though all I had to do was unclip and step down onto the floor of my office. I could have called it, stripped out of my bike shorts, and been lounging on my couch eating Reese’s Peanut Butter cups (yum) and Ben & Jerry’s (yum) in two minutes.
Now that it’s over and my eyes are back in their proper place, I realize that this particular silly idea did help me. The next time I’m doing something that seems to suck – say, skinning uphill for 24 hours, biking 115 miles and 15,000 vertical feet in one day, or riding up Mont Ventoux — I’ll think back on Tour de Trainer and realize it doesn’t suck. At all.
