A Day in the Life of an Idiot

A ski racer's self-inflicted approach to off season training. Some turn to cycling

By Mike Hancock

The alarm goes off at an ungodly hour in the morning.  I groggily take a swipe at the snooze button before it wakes my wife and daughter, who have managed to occupy most of the bed during the night.  A quick check of the weather shows single-digit temperatures, so I throw on my cycling clothes and stumble downstairs.  My cleats make a hollow sound on the concrete garage floor as I shuffle to the DVD player.  Thumbing through the pile, I settle on the cycling classic, A Sunday in Hell, and then climb on the bike, which is mounted to a stationary trainer.  The steady breeze from the fan causes me to shiver as I start turning the pedals over, but soon I warm up and start to sweat.  Today’s plan is to do an hour and a half on the trainer, with one minute, maximum intensity intervals thrown in there for fun.  Once you start blacking out, you’re just about done.  After a while, the legs become used to the effort, and they mechanically spin away as if to stop would be unthinkable.  The heart and lungs alternate between battering my ribs from the inside and slowly recovering.  The mind goes blank.  I may drool a bit and not really care.  For 90 minutes, this is my life.

It makes no sense.  I am never going to be a world class cyclist.  I doubt I’ll ever become remotely marginal.  Yet I spend large amounts of money on equipment and a coach that devises new and devious ways to make me hurt.  Why?  Because I am an idiot.  There can be no other explanation.

I started cycling years ago as a way to get into shape for ski racing and shed the excess pounds my “all McDonalds, all of the time” diet had added.  As the miles piled on, I found myself actually enjoying myself. Eventually my competitive nature took over, and road racing became the outlet.  I must have some sort of strange disorder that compels me to take up sports that I’m ill-suited for, because week after week I would get destroyed by the competition.  Over time, I must have lost my knack for losing, because I slowly started climbing the results page.  This year I won my category (slow, fat guys) in the annual stage race, resulting in an automatic upgrade for next season.  My new class is faster and frankly, I’m a bit intimidated.

 After great deliberation, I decided my usual training plan of eating Twinkies and watching Law and Order reruns wasn’t going to cut it this time around.  I usually enter the spring borderline obese and completely out of shape, after being worn down by a season of skiing.  It takes me most of the summer to ride back into shape, which limits the progress I make.  Since I’m lazy and easily distracted, I never stick to an actual off-season training plan. In fact, I’m so lazy I haven’t finished any of the numerous Cycling Training Plans for Dummies books that litter the house.  That’s where the coach comes in.  She sets out my schedule and checks on my progress, which keeps me honest when the couch and remote beckon.  With her help and a lot of sweat, I plan on achieving my pie-in-the-sky goal for next season- becoming pack fodder. Oh, me and my dreams…

I grind away at the pedals, watching DVDs I’ve seen a million times and staining the garage floor with puddles of sweat.  I work around the demands of family and career, waking at odd hours to squeeze in another round of mindless exertion that gets me nowhere (my GPS bike computer confirms this).  Yet I believe in the end this will yield dividends. I know from experience that my skiing will improve, that the leg muscles I’ve developed and weight that I’ve lost will translate into faster times on the course.  I’ll roll through to next cycling season with a new level of fitness, honed by countless puke-inducing intervals, which will allow me to hang on to the peloton for a little longer than I had ever dreamed possible.  I won’t win, or even come close.  I’ll crack on the climbs and shoot off the back as if propelled by rockets.  Featherweight guys in their 20s with calves chiseled out of granite will sprint away from me with soul-crushing ease, casting pitying glances at the fatty wheezing his way towards the finish. 

That’s the life I choose, because every time I finish a tank-emptying race I feed my endorphin addiction.  I feel a little better about myself, and I can face life with a level head and energy reserves I didn’t know I had.  I can make my daughter giggle by dancing like an idiot around the living room, because that’s what dads do.  Despite the copious amounts of lung butter I produce these days during workouts, I feel healthier than I have since I was 25.  I need to be, if I am going to intimidate all of my daughter’s future would-be suitors.  That’s also what dads do, and I plan on living up to my end of the bargain.  So, while my 4 year old center of the universe snuggles up to my wife in my warm bed, I keep my legs churning away in a cold garage- because to stop would be unthinkable.

Mike Hancock has always been late for everything. Although he was an extremely active youth, the biggest thing he did in his 20s was gain 80lbs.
He was 30 before he started skiing seriously, and spent a great deal of money and time becoming a marginal alpine ski racer. He now coaches and
races with the Alyeska Masters, and runs a small NASTAR-esque racing league. Not content to be lousy at only one expensive sport, he actively sought one where excess weight is a serious disadvantage - road cycling. He now races to experience acute embarrassment and learn the value of lung-searing pain. Although he has lost a considerable amount of weight, he still considers himself a fat-fat-fatty. He's not the only one.