Be Positive

https://pezcyclingnews.com/toolbox/best-tips-to-become-a-postive-thinking-cyclist-during-corona-lockdown/

2020 Vision

There are several things I want to accomplish cycling wise over the course of the new year, so I’m boldly setting a marker in what passes for stone these days in the form of this post.

I will be headed to the big island of Hawaii in February, so naturally, I will want to bring my bike with me and try to ride Mauna Kea.  This is one of the biggest climbs in the world, from sea level to ~14,000’ though we are staying at an AirBNB in Waimea, which is on the northern half of the island but not at sea level.  Given my poor form and mileage totals, I will have to ramp up my mileage in a steady and sustainable way early in the year.  I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it all the way to the top, the important part of the goal for me is to try hard enough to be satisfied with the effort and preparation.

From there, I will have to come down from the summit, in the words of Rene Daumal, back to the reality that it will still be cold and dreary February in Seattle upon my return.  However, the days will be starting to lengthen, and after some recovery, I will set my sights on having a good rest of the year riding.  The goals for this being what eluded me in 2019, to build form steadily and sustainably.  I’ve been experimenting with a new tool in this regard, which is taking and logging my orthostatic heart rate each morning to assess how rested or tired I am.  Over the month that I’ve been self-assessing with this I’ve had the orthostatic rate range from a low of 6 when I felt really sick to a high of 40 after several healthy days of rest.  I’m still working on developing the right ranges for myself but it seems like 20 is about the minimum it should be to go out and ride.

I’m looking forward to the challenges of putting this new knowledge into practice in 2020!

2019 Year in Review

2019 had lots of setbacks and challenges for me, and it’s important to me to both acknowledge and learn from them.

I fell short of my mileage goals again this year.  Part of that may be that I had set the bar too high at 5,000 miles, but I also like setting goals that are a stretch for me.  Falling short was mostly due to 4 factors:  having a two year old in the house, remodeling / moving, weather, and a persistent hip / hamstring issue.  While the toddler is pretty self-explanatory in terms of limiting time on the bike, the other factors combined to make the year less than ideal from a cycling perspective.  In February we had a very unusual for Seattle weather where there was snow on the ground for most of February.  This resulted in not getting a winter base of training that increased steadily into the spring and summer.

I was also remodeling our home during the late spring, doing much of the painting myself, and finally moved in during the early summer.  The painting, moving, organizing, and arranging also took a toll, using energy that I could have used riding more.  By June, we were finally moved in, and this saw my mileage increase rapidly, as I had been aching to get more time on the bike up until then.  At first, it felt great to be getting the miles in finally; however, by about mid July, I started having tightness in my hamstrings that wasn’t just temporary soreness.  So I missed some of the best riding times of the year in August and September while alternately trying to rest my legs and get out there again.  Finally, in October, I began seeing a PT and bike fitter, who showed me that my glutes weren’t activating fully.  He prescribed me some exercises and refitted my #1 bike, but also suggested that one of the reasons was a lack of cross training.  Thinking back, in prior years, I had done different activities, such as hiking, cross country skiing, basketball, and tennis which balanced out the time riding.  Since having my daughter, I had come to concentrate only on cycling to the exclusion of these other balancing activities.

There are some great lessons in here for my overall health going forward, and I will follow up with another post later this week on my 2020 goals which will include these lessons learned.

People

A good article here on how we are people cycling/walking/driving etc, and how framing it in this way can reduce the the tribalism of identifying as cyclists/pedestrians/drivers.

Church

You say the hill's too steep to climb,
Chiding!
You say you'd like to see me try,
Climbing!
You pick the place and I'll choose the time
And I'll climb
The hill in my own way
just wait a while, for the right day
And as I rise above the treeline and the clouds
I look down hear the sound of the things you said today

Pink Floyd - Fearless

One of my favorite things about climbing is that on the ascent we can sometimes ride out of the clouds.  On this day, on the Golden Gardens hill climb, which starts at roughly sea level and rises to only about 350 feet above; it was the right 350' to be treated to the above view.  I often describe such moments of beauty as church, for it's clear at such times that the earth is a sacred, living becoming.

Riders on the Storm

There was a storm that went through the area on Saturday that prompted the first tornado warning in western Washington since something like 1996.  I rode right through it, as it was between me and home.  On my way south down to Seward Park, I picked up a few sprinkles early on as I skirted the line of clouds slowly moving in from the north.  But after turning around to head back to Ballard, it was clear that dark and ominous cloud line would not be moving out of my way.

When the rain started, it was a heavy rain, much more like a Florida thunderstorm than what we typically get out here.  Then it got heavier.  And turned to hail.  And then it got even heavier.  It was coming down so fast there was an inch of water on the road, not just in the gutters, but across the whole road.  I just put on my rain jacket and kept going.  And within about 10 minutes, I had passed through it and there was bright sunshine.

The transitional seasons of Spring and Fall always make me feel alive.  Sure, summer's great, with day upon day of great riding weather beckoning me to go for a ride.  But the sudden and dramatic changes that happen here on a minute to minute basis in the Fall just fill me with a feeling of being alive.

Pondering the Magnitude of the Void

Today, rather than making circles, I took steps and went for a hike. The weather pattern has been cloudy in the lowlands, the marine layer in the valleys. Often, during one of these weather patterns, one can hike up above the clouds and be treated to magnificent views of wildflowers and surrounding peaks, like this.





Today was not one of those days. One never knows, until reaching the top, whether the clouds will be left below. Today, standing on the peak of Mt. Dickerman, I saw nothing but grey mist in every direction, as the mountain dropped away into the mist below. Near the edge of the north face, I could look down and see only grey directly below me.


I didn't take any pictures. There's no way a grey box on a screen can capture the utter groundlessness of being surrounded in this way. But Lao Tzu says it better than I can:

- 4 -

The Tao is empty but inexhaustible.

Eternal, like the void;

it is filled with infinite possibilities.

Infinitely deep, it is the source of all things.

Within it, sharp edges become smooth;

twisted knots loosen;

the sun is softened by a cloud;

the dust settles into place.

It is hidden but always present.

I do not know who gave birth to it.

It seems to be the common ancestor of all,

the mother of all things.

Flow

A great article on Flow and some reading suggestions on the subject can be found here, at one of my favorite cycling blogs, Red Kite Prayer.

Perspective

Two summers ago I was in the midst of one of the worst years of my life, working at a job I disliked, dealing with all manner of expensive legal issues, breaking up with a girlfriend, and most of all, difficulties regarding my relationship with my daughter.  I was miserable.  All I could do to stay sane was ride, and ride I did.

I'm currently doing pretty well by way of comparison, and I've been riding into some decent summer form.  I set a PR on part of Golden Gardens the other day, but not the full segment.  I've been chasing my PR's since that miserable summer when I set them all.  All that emotional baggage I was carrying made me lose a ton of weight, and I was riding lots and just floating up hills.  Every time I look at a PR, it's from that terrible summer.

It's funny to me that those are the times I'm now chasing, that I could look back on a time so craptacular in my life and realize that it wasn't so bad.  There were good, redemptive things that I made happen through simply riding.  Perhaps we can see now the blessings in life that seemed like curses at the time and realize that what seems cursed now will someday be a blessing as well.

Healing

We too often in life and on the ride make a mistake.  On the bike, just a moment of inattention can have painful consequences involving leaving skin on the tarmac, and the same is true of life.  Under such circumstances, we have little choice but to dust ourselves off, get back on the bike, and do what we can to enhance the body's natural recovery.  We know there may be sleepless nights of wounds sticking to sheets and getting up in the morning feeling stiff and sore, but we also know that if we let the natural processes work, we will slowly heal ourselves.

2013

In 2013, I rode 2,936 miles over 189 hours.  My goal for the new year is simply to follow the advice of the prophet Eddy and ride lots.  I opened my account yesterday with a short ride after coming back from visiting family and friends for the holidays.  I know that folks often advocate setting goals that are objectively measurable and achievable, for instance that this year I will ride 3,500 miles.  But I'd rather just ride lots and not worry about the details.

Nap Time

Fitness is Training and Recovery.  These together bring adaptation, which is simply another word for fitness or form.  Much is made of the Training portion, for this is the part I love, the making of circles.  But the Recovery aspect of fitness cannot be overstated.

Athletes, when they are able, often take afternoon naps, especially when one can fit in a training episode both in the morning, and after a nap, but before night time sleep.  It has been shown that HGH (Human Growth Hormone) is naturally secreted during the early phases of sleep, and also that napping in the late afternoon is the most ideal time for the body to create it.  If HGH is good, more must be better.

High Rock Lookout

Yesterday, I decided to merge my enthusiasm for riding with a bit of investigative journalism regarding the recent US Government shutdown.  I thought that perhaps if I went down to Mt Rainier National Park, I would have miles of beautiful, car free, mountain roads to enjoy in splendid solitude.  I parked a mile or so below the National Park gate and rode up to find a Ranger in the kiosk.  Thinking it wiser to stop and chat rather than just blowing through the gate, I asked her if I'd be allowed to ride in the Park.  She told me in the nicest possible way that the park was totally and completely closed to all visitors, that taxpayers couldn't even walk in (only she didn't use the word taxpayers).  Hopes of cycling nirvana temporarily crushed, I asked her if she could recommend any other roads in the area that were good for riding.

She said I could go back down the road a while, turn left, and I would get onto Skate Creek road, which wandered along a creek valley 22 miles down to the bustling metropolis of Packwood.  Although I had no intentions of riding that far, I decided that I could at least go some of the way, and headed back down toward my new goal.  I rode a while, and although cold and wet, the mild elevation gain offered some warmth to the body and legs.  When I got to a point that would indicate a total ride of about 15 miles, I duly turned around and began my way back down.

I then spied a sign that I somehow missed on the way up, for a road called High Rock Lookout.  Something in the name screamed elevation gain at me, and soon, I was on my way up an unpaved crushed dirt and gravel road.  It went right away over a quite dangerous bridge that had slippery lumber in two tracks for cars over sections of steel grating.  Once this was safely navigated, the rest of the road looked pretty much like this:

This was the point at which I turned around.

The potholed sections were at varying intervals, and there were also some washboarded out parts, but the road was in generally good enough condition to weave through and around them.  At one point, high up the road, a family in a van passed me on the way down, the driver looking at me totally incredulously, as if to say, "what the fuck are you doing all the way up here in such miserable conditions?"  

As every cyclist knows, the descent is always the coldest part of the ride, and the elevation gain, combined with thumbs that were starting to get really cold on the ascent, forced me to conclude that I should turn around just around that next bend, which was soon replaced by just over that next rise.  This went on for some time before I finally just decided that I needed to turn around and get back down.

I was very cold on the descent, especially my hands, to the point that I started thinking how nice it would be to piss on them to give them some warmth.  Continuing down, such thoughts disgusted me yet somehow became more frequent and persistent, and about halfway down, I stopped, took off my gloves, and started urinating over my hands.  It felt like the hottest shower, immediately soothing, but also too hot, and I was amazed that this heat was coming out of my own body.  It should be noted at this point that I also decided it would be also be prudent to drink some fluids, in case I should need to call on this method of hand warming again.  By the junction with the main road at the bottom, it was slightly warmer but I still reckoned on about 7 miles to the car.

By this time, the calculus of how gross was pissing on my hands was replaced by how cold would I be if I went harder, increasing both the windchill and my internal heat, vs backing off a little and reducing both.  It was clear to me that I wanted to be out of the weather sooner rather than later, and should just hammer the remaining miles to the warm car.

I learned some things on this ride.  Firstly, that I really need new gloves.  Also, that my Cervelo RS is a truly worthy Graveur, especially with the 25mm tyres mounted on it.  And lastly, that I will do whatever it takes to make it home to the warmth and love of my Velomihottie, who would be back in Seattle waiting for a call or text from me letting her know that I was all right.

Preparation

When the mind is free of worries, the legs can do their best work.

One of the best strategies for removing worry from my rides is preparation.  Over the years, going for ride after ride, one develops a rhythm and cadence not only while on the bike, but to the other activities that support riding frequently.  The Brita filter is refilled every couple days; laundry is washed on days bounded by a ratio between the number of bibs owned and the frequency of rides; the steed is cleaned and lubed.

In the words of legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."

Prior to each ride, the bike is gone over, ensuring tyres are at the desired pressure, brakes are operational and don't rub, and bidons are filled.  If I'm going on a longer ride, one bidon will often be supplemented with a protein/carb mix, and this will always be placed in the seat tube cage.  I won't have to concern myself during the ride with where my calories are - when I reach for them, they will be there.

Occasionally, despite the best preparations, a flat or other mechanical will be suffered, but if one brings the right stuff, one needn't worry about anything other than having to change a tyre for 5 minutes.  I've distilled what I carry down to:  a pair of tyre levers, spare tube, patch kit, pump, multitool, and a ziplock bag into which I put my cell phone, a spare, expired ID (that still shows who I am and the correct address to bring my lifeless body home to, should it come to that), and one single key to get me back into my garage.  I used to add my wallet and full set of keys, but that extra weight just slows me down.

Similarly, when weather conditions may be inclement, it's good to pack arm and leg warmers and a rain shell into the jersey pockets.  These are always to be rolled up starting at the bottom, so when I grab them out of a back pocket during a ride, I can hold onto the end, unroll them, and know that the part I'm grabbing is the top of the arm warmer or the collar of the jacket.  I don't have to worry about sorting out how to put it on mid ride.

Together, these details evolve into a ritual series of preparation that function to remove doubt and worry from the ride.  They are, over the years, distilled down to cover only what is needed, leaving everything superfluous behind.

Mt Baker Climb

One of my all time favorite climbs in the Puget Sound region for its challenge, length, and scenery is Mount Baker.  I keep coming back to the mountain for the lessons and strength it imparts.

I was on a good day riding up the climb of Washington SR-542 to Artist's Point.  I was able to stay on top of my gear the whole way up, only switching to standing up occasionally to change the rhythm of climbing and give slightly different muscle groups in the legs a chance to do the work.

I love the work of climbing, for me, it's all about feeling around for that boundary below which I can keep the current pace, and above which I completely and utterly explode.  The climbs around Seattle certainly allow for playing with these limits; however, they are completely different in that their short durations mean that I always know that if I keep going, the effort and hill will be over soon.  On a climb like Mt Baker, the limit must be set knowing there will be no respite along shortly.  As such, the boundary is slightly lower, but must be pushed against constantly for the duration.

I've heard the Cascades referred to as the American Alps, and the picture above shows why.  This is very much like an Alpine climb in its length as the meat of the climb is 11 miles at an average gradient of 5.2%.  This got me to thinking about how even though the differences in wattage, speed, and talent vary widely between myself and the pros, the sensations and emotions we feel on the way up are probably very similar.  Burning lungs, heart in the throat, leg searing efforts like this remind me of Greg LeMond's oft repeated quote that, "It doesn't get any easier, you just get faster."  This was true for me, as I set PR's up the various segments on the mountain.

Further reminders of this came the next day, as I went for a recovery spin with a novice buddy to clear out the legs.  We went out to Golden Gardens park, a flat route, where he decided he wanted to climb the hill up to Sunset Hill.  My legs were also warming up by this point, and so I agreed.  This climb seemed so easy to me compared with the efforts of the day before that I was able to climb from the seated position and spin up without a second thought.

Thought Replacement

Cycling often functions for me as a microcosm of life.  It's a smaller, rather more controlled circle of limited boundaries in which to try things out.  Since much of the focus is on the physical aspect of power against the forces of wind and climbing, it's sometimes easy to forget that it is the mind which ultimately powers every endeavour.

I've been experimenting with saying one word from a mantra or validation phrase on every third stroke of the pedals and synchronizing this with the breathing.  That is, on the first right stroke, I will breathe out, focus on pushing the pedal hard, and saying in my mind the first word of the affirmation.  Then I will soft pedal the next left and right strokes, giving both legs a brief respite.  Finally, I'll breathe out, push hard, and say the second word of the affirmation on the next left.  And so on.

The natural tendency is to synchronize the breathing with one or the other leg, but this leaves things unbalanced.  Focusing on every third revolution balances the effort between legs and repeating whatever affirmation during moments of hard effort replaces any thoughts of the suffering with what I choose to put in my head.  It can be as simple as "keep going."

Risk

Today is two years to the day since Wouter Weylandt died racing his bike in the Giro.

We all take risks every day, in cycling and in life, and often it is the seemingly innocuous little things we don't see that can have tragic consequences.  In Wout's case it was some low stonework that he clipped on a descent, and instantly he would never see his wife and child, nor race a bike again.  And yet, the man died doing what he loved.

RIP.

Pedaling Squares

Sometimes I go for a ride, and rather than making circles and feeling the fluidity of the moment, I pedal squares. This is not the Ideal State, but many times I can pedal through it, and often those moments of presentness and fluidity can return.

Recently, the bike has been beautiful as far as catching those moments when everything goes together, but the rest of life has been the part that is pedaling squares. The lessons from the bike are to keep going, take care of myself, look at what might be changed, experiment, and repeat.