Let's speak of suffering

What seperates the break from the peloton, the podium finishers from those, well, not on the podium? Sure, strength, tactics, blah blah blah comes into play, but you won't win a big race unless you are willing to suffer. Suffering itslef might not be the hardest part of suffering, but preparing yourself mentally, telling yourself that pretty soon I will be pushing my limits and it's going to be everything but fun and enjoyable. Suffering is not fun, I don't care who you are, if you're having fun then you're not suffering. The feeling you get after suffering, however, can only be explained by those that suffered. It's an accomplishement, sure, but there's this weird feeling you get mentally afterwards that is very hard to explain. You made it over that hump, the work is done, it's time to ride home and eat some food and try and stay awake long enough to see the sun go down so you can get a good night's sleep. There's also some stretching and foam rolling to do if you're commited enough and not lazy, I am going to commit myself to a stretching regime starting today and a foam rolling regime as soon as I get one.

Don't get me wrong, a race is not won by who can suffer the most. By that I mean Cavendish's pace at "suffering" while climbing is much slower than that of Contador's, so even if Cav is suffering more than Contador he'll still be way way back. However, if Contador is not willing to suffer himself then he won't come out on top, no matter how fast you are you're going to have to suffer.

How do we know if we're suffering and not just putting in a hard, hard effort? Well, in my opinion, there is a fine line between a hard effort and suffering, only to be crossed when the effort is no longer fun. When you're pushing your body further than your mind is willing to go and you have to keep telling yourself "don't quit, this is good for me, keep going" to keep the effort and hope that you make it across that imaginary line before you collapse whether it be on top of a hill or to the "blue sign". Either way, it isn't until the effort is over that you're happy, there is nothing to smile about when you're trully suffering.

Some days you just can't suffer, you're not there whether it be physically or mentally or both and you can't get into that "zone" that elite athletes often talk about. Sometimes suffering is forced upon you from an involuntary bonk, you find yourself completely tapped out 15km from home and have no choice but to endure that awful feeling until you get home. No matter what the pace, as long as those pedals are turning then you're suffering. Are they the same kind of suffering? Maybe, just in one case you're going faster than the other?

Suffering can be brought on by yourself or by others, why is it that when suffering is brought on by others it's always so much more intense and you went even harder than you thought you could go because such an effort was never achieved alone? Is there a level of pain higher than suffering? I believe it's called racing. Agaisnt the clock (TT) or others you are no longer "suffering" but "racing", no one has to say they suffered in a race report, of course you did, it was a race. It's just understood, but we say it anyways because that's the one word that best describes a pseudo-death effort whether it be to hold on to the top spot on the podium or just finishing the race. I think that's why I sleep the whole way home from a race but have no problem holding a conversation for the entire drive if I just went to a venue to ride, even if I rode so much more during the ride than the race. You don't even realise how much you're gutting yourself during a race because you're in that racing "zone" that doesn't wear off until a good 30min after the race is done.

Maybe I'll look back at this in a few years as an Elite racer (hopefully!) and realise I was way off, but that's one of the best parts of having a blog, you can look back at things you wrote when you were younger and less experienced and see how your perspective on certain things has changed over the years. Anyways, time to cut the lawn in 30 degree weather, yay.