Quantcast
Channel: Fit Chick
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 31

What’s On Your Mind?

0
0

The more I think about it, the more I’ve decided I should just not think. Or at least I should delay my thinking until I’m very close to being done with whatever I’m doing, because that’s when all the positive thoughts come thundering in like the cavalry to hustle me to the finish line like a herd of, well, horses…if horses do indeed thunder in herds.

When the going gets chaotic, it's best to keep your head quiet.

Several events last weekend confirmed that for me. One was a locker-room conversation I overheard between Rebecca Rusch (the four-time winner of the 100-mile Leadville trail ride, among other amazing feats of endurance) and another woman, Celeste, who was riding the Bicycling Magazine Spring Classic at Specialized’s headquarters in Morgan Hill, California, last Saturday. Celeste asked Reba how she used her Garmin computer in training. The answer was unexpected:

“I use it in training. But I often do better if I don’t look at it until after the fact. Like when I’m doing interval workouts. Sometimes when I use it, I actually struggle more. I’ll send my files to Dean [her coach] and he’ll be like, ‘Were you trying?’ And I say, ‘Of course I’m trying!’ So I put a piece of tape over it and go by feel, and my numbers are so much better because I’m not looking down thinking about how hard it is or how much I suck. ”

Hmmm.

Then there was a conversation I had with coworker and fellow endurance enthusiast Laura Beachy. She had recently completed the Umstead 100-Mile Endurance Run, near Raleigh, North Carolina. It entailed running a 12.5-mile course eight times to hoof out a century (might as well run straight to the banks of Hades in my opinion, but we all have our things). There’s a 30-hour cutoff for this hellfest. Beachy was doing peachy until about mile 75 when her nutrition went sideways and she came to an almost literal crawl. (She did finish.) Anyway, someone asked her “What did you think about all that time?” Her reply: “Putting one foot in front of the other. Otherwise you just think ‘Why?’ and start shutting down.”

Double hmmm.

Then there was the event itself. I was doing the 90-mile option of the Spring Classic. Unlike the fall version, which takes place in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania, pretty close to my home, which has a pretty casual chit-chatty rollout, this thing started fairly hot right out of the gate and felt more like a jacked-up lunch ride than a four- to five-hour fondo. The voices in my head piped up immediately. “All day? We’re going to do this all day? Can you do this all day? I’m not sure you can do this all day. Do you even want to do this all day? How are you going to do this?”

At that point I decided to steal and adapt Jens Voigt’s classic “Shut up legs” and simply said, “Shut up head.” My legs felt fine. I’d been training very specifically for these fast threshold efforts for months. I’d already done plenty of long, hard, four-hour-plus days. I was fully prepared, reasonably rested, and very ready. The only thing standing between me and having a good day out there in sunny—if ridiculously windy—California was my own head.

To help quiet my nagging noggin, I engaged in a bit of moving meditation. I let the negative thoughts and voices pipe up as they were wont to do. But I turned a deaf ear to them, much like you’d ignore a whiny child, letting them stream through my mind without stopping and fixating on them. I turned my focus outward, to the experience. The sound of the tires on the pavement. The snap of the stiff carbon frame under my pedal strokes. The sunshine and buffeting winds.

Time passed and miles passed. The pack never did slow down, and eventually I lost them with about 10 miles to go after a very technical descent where I just couldn’t hang. I was okay with that, too. I caught up with another rider after a while and we chit-chatted away as we cruised the final miles back into town.

We gave each other a playful fist bump as we coasted under the large inflatable arch that marked the finish line. I glanced down at my odometer. 89.4 miles in 4:17; average speed of 20.8 mph. I’d had a great day—one of my best, really—without thinking about it…because I hadn’t thought about it, but rather got out of my own way and let it happen. Now that’s something to think about.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 31

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images