Athlete Blogs
February 14th, 2010Random Ramblings
Unlike most parts of the mid atlantic, we don't have any snow or ice on the ground and the weekend weather was actually pretty nice. Today it is about 40 with bright sunshine. I can probably count on one hand the number of rides outside i've done in 2010, so I figured today would be a good day to get some sun. Of course I simply can't break my morning habit of riding first thing, so I did a set of 2x20s indoors - then ate, relaxed and hit the road for an hour outside of some light tempo. Felt nice to get outside and the sun was welcomed.Recently I had the pleasure of having dinner with a good friend and he reminded me something very important and something we could all use reminding of now and again. We do this cycling thing for fun, for the challenge, to enjoy being very good at something (or just as good as you can be) - but it doesn't pay the bills, provide security for your family or do anything else overly noble. So sometimes we need an event to reset our perspective on what is really important - family, friends, security, etc. I'm glad to see many of my friends have found this perspective.
So balance is important in the long run - but - to achieve peak performance in sport or life, sometimes you have to temporarily skew that balance. If you want to win a big race, ride a 50 min 40km or win a national championship, likely you will be out of balance for a while in preparation. That's ok - as long as it doesn't become the norm because in the end, it's fun, makes you feel good, but it's only bike racing. Now man up and go get a great workout, even if you have to do it at 4:30AM.
