I have no idea how this word got stuck in my head or where I even heard it. I may have even thought I made it up. So I looked it up in the dictionary.
Transmogrification - The act of changing into a different form or appearance, especially a fantastic or grotesque one...
It occurred to me that I probably heard it in an X-Men movie (new one coming out this year, very psyched!).
It makes me think of my own transmogrification, from a normal kid who liked to ride his bike, into a grown man who puts on colorful spandex outfits, shaves his legs during race season, and schedules his Summer around going to places to race his bike against other 40-somethings that wear spandex and shave their legs.. I may not be an X-man, but I sure as hell transmogrified into something :)
Like any kid, I loved my bike more than just about anything (except maybe the Farrah-Fawcett poster on my wall). It meant freedom. It got me everywhere well into my teens. I've really only been into road cycling since I was 29 and that's where this story will start. Similar to the story about Jesus, my years between the early teens and 29 were somehow lost and forgotten, (that's really where any Christlike similarities end.) My first road bike was something that I had won in a raffle at work. The contest was that you'd get an entry for every resume you put in for a referral when the company was in the middle of an employment drive. So I went online and pulled about 30 resumes off and entered them. Cheating? It didn't say I had to know the people :) And it won me the bike that changed my life...
So here I was on my free $700 bike.. I used it as my primary rehab after a knee reconstruction surgery to repair a blown ACL from a ski injury. I didn't want any helmet or biking shorts, I didn't want clipless pedals, I didn't want that stupid little bicycle seat ("Don't these things come with the banana seats that my Huffy had when I was 7?").. I did want some cool shades, but I didn't need the rest of the crap. I was definitely not going to become one of those skinny weirdos in the bright outfits. My first ride was about 10 miles and I almost died going up a couple hills.. Wearing my sweatpants, a sweatshirt, sneakers, and my cool shades. After a few rides like this, I started really enjoying being out for an hour and working my butt off. I didn't like getting passed by 60 year old men and women on tandems and started to wonder if it was something about the clothes and funky plastic shoes they were wearing. I went to the bike shop and was talked into clipless pedals and bike shoes and I bought my first pair of spandex biking shorts with the little chamois pad in it. And the transmogrification began.....
Stay tuned for part 2 where I make friends with the rednecks....
Back to the present where I'm finally getting some serious miles in outside. In my experience, it really doesn't matter how many miles or intervals you put in on the trainer or the rollers, the road will still kick your ass when you first get out. Everything....seems....so......damn....heavy.....and......slow......... In the past 7 days I logged 170 miles and burned over 6000 calories on the bike. The first 140 miles were harder than I had hoped. But by Friday when I went out for a 41 miler my legs actually started to have some "Pop!" which I was excited about.. Yesterday I rode my bike to the gym at 7:30am when it was 18 degrees so that I would be able to get my miles in for the day (another 30).. I was coming down a hill at 30 MPH and I thought my eyeballs were going to shatter. It was pretty brutal. I have to fine tune my nutrition for this.. I am hungry ALL THE TIME.. I need to be at somewhere between 4000 and 4500 calories to fuel my workouts on the bike and in the gym which isn't the easiest task when you're trying to eat clean. It takes a lot of fruits and veggies to get up to that many calories. I'm very psyched to get my racing season underway in April. First race, Turtle Pond in Concord on April 25th!
All the best,
Kevin
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