The Long Grind

A bike racer's dogged determination to achieve physical fitness.  Things don't always go according to plan.

By Mike Hancock

As the season progresses and the mileage piles up, my body and bike start to mirror each other.  Now that winter is just around the corner, that reflection is more apparent than ever.  The creaks and groans from my tired muscles and bones almost drown out the creaks and groans emitting from my bike.   All season long I’ve tried to maintain them, but eventually one too many rides in the cold rain, one too many attempts to latch back on to the back of the peloton, and one too many weeks with far too little recovery have left the bike and me more or less worn down.

I rode into the season stronger than ever, after a winter of grinding away on the trainer in a cold, dark garage.  My early-season results were unspectacular, but showed a glimmer of potential for a breakout year.  Then I was forced to miss two smaller stage races for work and family, and my motivation faded a bit.  An outstanding and unexpected result in a time trial fired me back up, and I was excited about my chances in the same stage race that I had won the previous year.  I began to play around with positioning in the pack and tried a few stupid and pointless attacks to see what was possible with this new engine.  The more I raced, the more I fancied myself as a contender for a decent placing.  Not podium material, but not pack-fodder either.

Once the stage race started, things didn’t go as planned.  I likely over-trained during the lead-up to the race, and possibly peaked a couple weeks before.  As a diesel, I usually chug my way to victory in time trials, but this year I was actually slower in the prologue by a decent margin.  This was a serious blow to my confidence, and I had to re-evaluate my goals on the fly.  As it turned out, the bad result was a good thing.  I started to push myself in other disciplines to maintain or improve my position.  I started paying closer attention to race tactics, and probably read more into rider’s moves than they intended.  I climbed faster than I ever have before (which is still quite slow).  I actually found myself at the front during an intermediate sprint and managed to take third, which I had never done before. I probably could have taken second if I could have recovered from the shock of being there quicker.  I’m not a sprinter- or am I? The race confirmed a few of my beliefs and opened my eyes to a whole lot of possibilities, which was far more valuable to me as a rider than anything I could have gotten from my daydream endings.

As a result of several consecutive days of racing in the wind and rain, every muscle and bone in my body ached. Two days later I pulled a muscle in my upper back doing crunches, which kept me off the bike and on various pain medications for the better part of two weeks.  My mileage and morale dropped at about the same rate, and when I finally got back in the saddle I found I wasn’t interested in pushing it.  Without the thrill of competition to drive me, long cruises at a moderate pace were all I seemed capable of.  The back felt better when I rode, and my mood improved.  Reconnecting with the simple act of riding a bike for fun was exactly what I needed.

However, without periodic, intense efforts to balance out my steady diet of mediocrity, my fitness started to crash.  With the road racing season over, I decided to jump into the local cyclocross series and beat myself senseless.  My doctor would probably disapprove.  I’ve always said ‘cross is a lot of fun, except for all of that running and jumping, and my back and knees agree with this assessment.  Still, I’m getting all the intensity I can handle.  Spending an hour averaging 95% of your maximum heart rate is nothing if not intense.  I’m enjoying getting trounced by some new faces, even if my post-race routine consists of taking vast quantities of narcotics, lying in bed, and whimpering.

Now I’m scurrying around the roads of south-central Alaska like a squirrel, trying to squeeze in as much riding as I can before the weather shifts.  The snow on the tops of the front range is more or less permanent now, and the fleece cycling clothing is in steady rotation.  In about a month I’ll have my studded tires on, but for now the roads are clear and the light is still pretty good.  As long as it doesn’t rain too hard, I’m out there enjoying myself.  The longer I can put off getting back on the trainer, the happier I’ll be.  I’ll have plenty of time to deal with the creaks and groans later.

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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.