I am certainly motivated by achievement. And, it's not that I'm necessarily thrilled by the prospect of being better than my peers. It's more that I like to know what my limit is. How far can I go if I work hard. I have a lot of passion - and I have a tendency to get really excited about various things and then go full on into them without thinking about the level of committment neceassy to follow the project through to completion. I'm getting better at this though - now that I recognize I do it. Cycling isn't a fleeting passion for me... I am committed to getting better. I really do want to know what my limits are with my cycling... although I have to remind myself of that when I'm training - because it hurts and I think that by default, when we are in physical pain, our minds try to tell us that we don't have to be doing this. And, I'm a fairly rational person. So, when I'm on my trainer and I'm uncomfortable my rational mind says "if people knew you were doing this, putting yourself through this, 4 or 5 days a week... they would think you're nuts." And my rational mind also tells me while I'm training "why are you putting yourself through this when you're not really going to race that seriously. I mean, it's not like you're trying to be the best in the province or anything".
Last year those voices won... I still got faster, but I knew I wasn't going to be racing so I could let my mind win. This year I'm being stronger mentally! Those voices pop up and I think - it doesn't matter because I want to know how fast and strong I can get... and, I'm not going to know that until I suffer... often. Yeah, it would be nice to win a couple races (who doesn't like to be good at something!). More than anything though, I want to meet my personal goals... and, if I can do that and I still feel I can improve... then I'll continue training.
I am eager to hear of your progress. As you may know, Christine and I started training on the CompuTrainer back in February. I wrote about it as it was new and exciting. But progress is so slow that I am waiting for a giant improvement. May never happen. I am reluctant to write and say I pedaled real hard for an hour and increased my average Watts by one.
ReplyDeleteBut that I can tell, not too many of us are writing about cycling so an account of muscles burning, perspiring, pushing hard and only increasing the Watts by one is something we all can relate to and enjoy.
Looking forward to hearing of your progress--or lack of progress. If lack of progress, take pictures. The background of your profile picture is great.