Cycling or Psycling?

While the Cyclocross season "officially" started off back in October, it has only just really kicked in for me these past couple of weeks. The first race I reported on in Dahlonega was over a month ago. There were breaks for mountain bike races the promoters were involved in on the weekends of the 12th and 26th. The second 'cross race of the season was in Savannah, GA on 10/19. Problem there was the pesky 5+ hour drive, cost of lodging and how to work out that long of a trip with the family. It did not add up - that's just too much to commit to for one 45 minute race. (Maybe next year if they have the race there again we'll have time to plan for it and make the trip into a mini-vacation. Krista and I would love to see the homes and historic district.) So for those three weeks I drove over to our practice course at Little Mulberry Park in Dacula, GA. for some race simulations. There is an odd sort of insight I can give on the mental make-up of a dedicated cyclist, and that is the ability to force yourself to suffer even with a near total lack of outside stimulation. The point here? For two of those training sessions, almost no-one showed up. The day of Savannah there were only three of us, and the other two guys bailed and left just minutes after I started us off on a 45min. race effort. I rode alone for the entire time. During a normal practice you have someone to chase, or someone to try and stay out in front of. This time - nothing. Cyclocross is hard - period. During a race you are riding in a group at your physical limit from beginning to end. Rest does not happen or you get dropped, and recovery from a maximum effort is only made in slight increments - maybe on a fast downhill where you can coast for 5 or 10 seconds. Now try to re-create that situation all by yourself - riding and running as hard as possible without any let-up for nearly an hour. I'd have to equate it to a controlled form of insanity where seeing things, hearing voices and talking to yourself are actually good things... Like projecting the image of another rider just in front of you or having that quiet little voice in the back of your head screaming "You're going too #%&*!ing slow - MOVE IT MARSHMALLOW BOY!" What a sight for someone walking in the park - a solitary lunatic on a bike pelting around an open field at full speed, jumping off and leaping back on the bike at random intervals for no apparent reason, a rictus of pain on his face and talking to people who aren't there. It's a wonder no one called the police.

One of my favorite stories about cycling was something I read a long time ago - author unknown. They were describing the secret of a good time trialist. A time trial is a race against the clock - just you and the bike where the goal is to go the fastest over a set course. Riding with someone else or drafting is illegal. The paragraph went something like this: "When you are in the middle of a hard time trial effort, you often notice black spots appearing and disappearing before your eyes. This is a product of your body using every scrap of available oxygen and plunging your brain into oxygen debt. The black spots are the visual representation of brain cells dying by the thousands. Therefore it stands to reason that the secret of a great time trialist is this - you can go very fast for a very long time because you're too dumb to realize that pain hurts." Well, that goes for Cyclocross as well.