Fear, loathing and saddle pain.

Have you ever done something that was so bad the thought of doing it again made you fear it?

I have. At the start of this experiment only ten weeks ago I somehow got talked into doing something called the “7 Peaks Challenge”. It involves riding up seven of the most significant mountains in my state. Given I hadn’t ridden for about three years and weigh in at just under 90kgs this was never going to be easy.

But I had something on my side – ignorance. I simply had no idea how bad what i was about to do was. And so, as usual, I sauntered to the start line with a confident swagger, and then promptly felt like dying.

Looking at the rides that constitute the Seven Peaks, as well as comments made by pro rider Simon Gerrans, we chose Lake Mountain as our initiation into the world of mountain climbing on a bike. In his own words, “Lake Mountain has gentle gradients and is an ideal way to get your climbing legs”.

Simon Gerrans weighs about 60kgs and has legs like tree trunks.

We parked the car right at the start of the climb. All we had to do was turn a corner and begin. On paper it has an average grade of under 5% and is only 22km long. Sounds easy.

Sadly, what we found was that the start of the climb was 4km long at 10%! For anyone not familiar with what this is like it means that for an out of shape, too heavy cyclist that I was always going to struggle. And struggle I did. In fact, it was so bad that I had to stop on three separate occasions in the first 4km alone! Despite pleas and encouragement from my training partner I was right on my limit. Heart beating so hard I couldn’t hear anything but the whooshing of air from my lungs and notice how, even in chilly temperatures I was sweating so profusely that I had sweat freely dripping off my nose. At this point I was done. I was sure I couldn’t continue.

I watched my partner ride up the road and slowly my heart rate crept back to the point that my normal training mindset returned. For anyone that doesn’t know me that meant that my usual self-loathing took over. Here I was, supposedly fit and strong yet wasted on the side of the road while my training partner sailed up out of view. Here I was about to turn around and head back to the car to wait until she returned having told all my friends where i was riding on that day.

Fat chance.

While it may speak volumes about what hidden demons I have the fact remains that self-hatred is a very powerful motivator. So, hating myself for wanting to quit, and then even more for deciding to go on, I shakily clipped back in and sallied forth once again.

With no computer on my bike it’s impossible to know how much suffering and distance I’ve gone through. It’s kind of a blissful way to be – just ride what terrain is in front of you, deal with it as it comes and concentrate just on smashing the pedals. So imagine my delight when I found out that just around the next corner, only a few hundred metres from where I was about to give up, that it flattened out.

The moment I came around that bend I fished into my jersey for some sugar. I had been right at my limit for however long it took to ride that 4km. My guess is about twenty to twenty-four minutes. That’s enough to almost completely wipe out the valuable glycogen stores needed to fuel big efforts. I sucked down as much as I could, gulped down a huge swig of water and kept going.

In the weeks since then I’ve logged a lot of miles. Again, while no idea exactly, I average a two hour ride five days per week. That gets me up to around 300km/ week. While nothing in terms of volume for a professional cyclist, in amateur terms, and for someone who is NOT a serious cyclist, this is getting there. And all for what?

Well, a part of me, the quiet, private, self-destructive loony that resides deep within me simply wants to see what is possible. Not necessarily in terms of cycling, as I don’t think I have any competitive aspirations for that. But just in terms of how far can you go? Common logic says that you have to choose – fitness or strength? But there are many who seem to be able to possess a strange combination of the two. The type of fitness that warriors from centuries ago needed to march all day wearing heavy bronze armor, fight and then march on again.

In the modern fitness world a few names really stand out – David Goggins is one of them. Not surprisingly Goggins is a warrior. He understands the benefits of go all day fitness and strength as well as the mental toughness that comes with forcing yourself to keep pushing for mile after mile.

And so here we are. I clearly have issues with myself, which I hate myself for even more, and knowing how much self-loathing is hidden away it makes me a little scared as to what I will be doing to myself over the coming months and year. This odd combination of frequent strength practice (five days per week) as well as frequent bouts of long distance work (also five days per week)  has already had some interesting effects.

Obviously I’ve dropped some weight. Minds play funny tricks on us, and being part of the RKC (the School of Strength) I had been playing  the “get big to get strong” game for a while. In my case, getting bigger actually makes me no stronger. Not even a little bit. My base line test for strength is the RKCII press and pull up standards. At half body weight for the press and a 24kg pull up, even though my weight had slowly risen upwards, my strength had hardly budged. I’ve always been at my best at around 85kgs. I’m fit and relatively strong. Over that I am happy, like a pig in mud. Or more specifically, like a pig eating Kit Kats and peanut M&Ms. Hardly a pillar of fitness virtue.

So I’m back down to near 85kgs and slowly dropping more. My strength has remained the same despite long periods of time spent in the saddle and every day I grow fitter and faster (and meaner – don’t try to sit on my wheel on flat terrain. I will try to kill you). In the short term I am training for this – Jodi Lee Foundation, Ride for the Little Black Dress. 1000kms in a week should be a nice little test. And if you like the blog, don’t be shy and go ahead and donate! It’s for a worthy cause.

And while I’m asking for favors, please be sure to go here and vote for my blog. My ego needs to be successful in competing at something because at my age my chances of winning anything physical are fast disappearing!

Tags: GPP, Kettlebell Training