The long dark

The last words I wrote in this blog were:

Lots of cold hard miles between now and then.  Time to HTFU and start over again for next year.  "You don't wrestle until you get tired, you wrestle until the Gorilla gets tired."

I held mostly true to that commitment.  299.72 miles in December, 375.85 miles in January, 254.99 in February, and 214 269 miles so far in March.  Only 10 of those miles were completed indoor on a trainer.  The rest were outside in mostly sub freezing temperatures.  My February and March totals have been below plan, and below last year because of a respiratory infection followed up a week later by a heavy dose of the common cold.

I rode many of those miles in the far Northwest suburbs and beyond, where Christmas-lighted neighborhoods gave way to snow-blown tracts of dormant corn and soybean fields.  I rode almost all of them alone.  I spent my evenings chasing an oval of white light across a sea of blackness.  The cold wind was bitter and piercing.  I wanted to write and tell you all about how hard I was working, and how tough I was for braving hypothermia and pushing onward.  But aside from a few Facebook updates, a few icy photos, I remained silent.  I did my intervals and went home.

I was not a unique and beautiful snowflake.  I was just another person wrestling with his demons, fighting to maintain contact with this sport.  Every time I went out in 30 degree weather, guys like Marcus Steele and the Titletown Fliers were going out in 15 degree weather and three times as much snow.  Every time I rode 40 miles, these guys were doing another metric century.  The fenders I was carrying for protection and resistance hardly seemed small and insignificant when compared to the labors of other.

Karen Horney's "tyranny of the should" plagued me.  I osculated between her fallacious perfection ("I work SO hard.") and manifested self-loathing ("I am a terrible person for not riding today").  My girlfriend worked hard to stabilize those extremes in pressure, pumping me up when I was flat, and letting some air out when I was risking a blow out.  Thanks to her for keeping me tires to the pavement.

It is now time to see where all this training has taken me.  Have I pushed my body to be faster and stronger, or have I just been fooling myself?  This week brings a reckoning against which I have been bracing myself since I wrote my last post.  This week it is time for the Barry-Roubaix.

I have done this race not once, but twice before.  It is not an easy journey.  My first race was the first time I had ever ridden more than 60 miles, my first race longer than 10 miles.  I learned a lot about suffering that day.  Before that ride I almost always had headphones and music in my ears when I was riding.  I have not listened to music while I was riding since.  I will never forget standing at the top of the hill at mile 44.1 and wondered aloud if I would be able get back on my bike and finish.   I honestly didn't know.  I tried not to think about last year's divine gift of 55 degree temps, and just enough rain to keep the roads from being dusty.  I only thought about the freezing temps that were likely to occur in central Michigan on March 23rd.

Last year I hoped to improve on my freshman effort.  I told my girlfriend that I had hoped to shave off 20 minutes or so.  I secretly hoped to finish 30 minutes faster.  I actually finished 56 minutes faster than my first year.  It was an amazing rush.  However, the stars that aligned for that moment of glory are already looking dim and disheveled.  I haven't been able to get in as many miles.  The course preview and the weather forecast look like it will be cold.  The course preview from today looks terrible.  It would be nice to see 3:20 again.  It would be nice to finish in the top half of the field again.  It will be interesting to see how that field, the massive 3,000 person field, does in what looks to be an icy muddy mess.  Will the leaders still average 21.7mph?  Will I be able to break 19?

The one area of "my game" that I have been working on a great deal this winter is nutrition.  I've been reading and learning about race-performance nutrition.  I have always been a "home-brew" kind of guy, and I have been working on the balance of hydration, nutrition, and micro-nutrient intake in the competition.  I have mostly abandoned the gel recipe I relied on last year (although I will have a batch made up for Barry) in favor of adding nutrients to water for more consistent delivery over time, ease of digestion, and better glycolysis.  Last night I worked out a the math so I could figure out how much corn syrup and agave syrup I needed to mix together to hit the magic ratio of 2:1 glucose/fructose, and have 90g total carbs in a standard size water bottle.

I even too my bike, the Falcon, into the shop on Thursday to get it tuned up.  Everything was in good working order when I got it back, and she lasted 55 miles today before the rear-deraileur broke into two pieces and snapped a few spokes.  I consider this a blessing because it didn't happen in six days from now.  It didn't happen in five days from now.  The shop has all week to get in parts and get everything in good working order again before it is time to head south then east then north and beat myself against the frozen gravel yet again.  It is time to step out into the light.