Dynamic Strength and Conditioning: Transmogrification Part IV

Now with a clear head, a clean way of living, good friends, and an incredible bike, I started getting serious about improving every aspect of my life. I was well into my 30's and I wanted to make sure that I made the most of the time I have going forward. Lots of people look back on their earlier years and have regrets. Wish they had done something different. I made more mistakes and made more bad choices than most people. Trust me on that one. I could spend a lot of time wishing I had done things differently but that would be pointless. The truth of the matter is that without the "old me", then the "new me" would never be able to exist. If there's one thing I've learned it's that great gains only come through great suffering. Physically, and especially mentally. People who haven't had to suffer, or run from their problems are weak. Coping with incredibly difficult situations makes you stronger for the next time you have to do it. Dealing with pain and suffering makes you so much stronger when you come out the other side.

There are lots of variables in my life, but the one thing that remains constant is that when I am in top physical condition I am better able to deal with whatever life throws at me. Being in top physical condition always comes back to the bike. When I made the transition from being a hairy legged recreational century rider to a competitive bike racer two things happened. I became much more intense about my fitness level and I started shaving my legs. The shaving part was really tough at first. I was scared to go out in public for fear of the mocking. Cyclists shave for a few reasons. When you crash and get all kinds of road rash on your legs it's much easier to clean and less chance of infection. Leg massages after races are much better with no hair. Some people say there's an aerodynamic benefit but unless you're Bigfoot I don't see how a little leg hair is going to slow you down that much. So I shaved. And later that season I put the reasons to shave to the test with a crash at the Loudon race track. At 30 MPH, I was in the middle of the pack when a couple guys ahead of me locked handlebars. It all happened so fast I didn't know what was happening until I was flying over my handlebars. My feet never came unclipped from the pedals so as I was spinning through the air, my bike was still attached to me. I flipped once and came down head and shoulder first, cracking my helmet. My bike came over the top of me, and finally came unclipped from my feet as it catapulted through the air, seemingly in slow motion, and went crashing down the track. I checked myself for injuries. I had some chunks taken out of my wrist and elbow and some road rash on my shoulder and forearm, but nothing on my legs.. There's irony for you.. Next time I'll shave my arms instead :) Amazingly, my bike was fine. Just a few scratches.

Later that season everything came together for me on one incredible day in Vermont. I was racing in the Green Mountain Stage Race. This is one of the toughest and most beautiful stage races in the country. It was the second day of racing which was a 60 mile road race on a rolling 20 mile circuit that we did three times. I had kind of a lousy day on the first day, blowing up on the climb to the App Gap and finishing 21st out of 80-something in my field. Day 2 I was feeling pretty good though. I spent most of the day near the front of the pack taking turns at the front pulling, at one point I pulled the group up the KOM (king of the mountain) climb and gave my buddy Jon a leadout for the KOM points. On the last lap we were about 5 miles out from the finish and the pack had slowed down considerably as the racers at the front decided they were done working and wanted others to come forward and start pulling. This is the thing about racing, when you're at the front in the wind, you're working harder than the people behind you. Up to 30% harder which is huge. The etiquette is, if you're going to hang near the front of the pack then you better be ready to take your turns in the wind. Then there's the sandbaggers who sit at the back of the pack and draft all day and only come to the front in the last couple miles to set themselves up for a sprint finish with fresh legs since they didn't have to do much work all day. I hate those guys. Anyway, we got to a point where those at the front decided they didn't want to work anymore and nobody was moving up to take their place. I also decided I was tired of pulling the sandbaggers around all day. So the whole group slowed down quite a bit as we were heading into a short hill. I was feeling strong, and I was feeling even more impatient. I just wanted to go. So I did. I took off from the group and figured a few guys would probably try to go right with me. I put in a monster effort over the short hill and kept pushing hard on the other side. When I looked to see who came with me there was nobody there and I had opened up about a 100 yard gap on the field.. I thought to myself "what next?" So I went into Time Trial mode. As hard as I possibly could. I knew I could cover the 5 miles in about 12-13 minutes depending on the head winds. I was cranking along, looking back every so often to see where the group was. I was opening up the gap little by little but I knew at some point the group would organize and start chasing me down. When you have even 4 or 5 guys working at the front of a pack to reel in a solo break you can close that gap pretty quickly. I was about 3 miles from the finish and I turned onto the road that the race finished on. It's a wide open road with a long gradual climb and it had a nasty headwind. My body was in agony and my heart was max'd from the effort. I got about 250-300 yds up the road and turned around and I could see that the group was starting to close the gap. The headwind was demoralizing. The thoughts were going through my head "no way you're holding onto this now. they're going to catch you.".. I had to make a decision to try to hold on to the break or situp and let the group catch me and try to fight it out in a sprint. This is where the mental toughness comes in. In as much pain as I was already in, I decided to put myself in more pain and try to hold on for the solo win. One of two things were going to happen. I was either going to hold on to win, or I was going to get caught and finish 70th because I had nothing left at the end. I put my head down and pedaled as hard as I could into the headwind. I stopped looking back. I had the lead car in front of me and that's all I focused on. When I felt like I couldn't pedal any more, I dug deeper and pedaled harder. It was one of the most brutal efforts I've ever put myself through. I got to the 1k marker and finally looked behind me. I didn't see anybody. I opened up a huge gap on the field, I had about a half mile of visibility down the road and I couldn't see anybody. One of the race officials on a motorcycle came up next to me and gave me a thumbs up and said "Awesome break!".. It was at this point I knew I had it. I sat up a little and took it easy the last 1km, there was no way I was getting caught now.. The emotions started flooding through me because I had just gone through such a difficult period of my life. The pain of the exploded marriage, the difficulty of essentially starting all over again with nothing (I literally left my house with clothes, a bike, and a blender because cyclists need to be able to make smoothies and it was a really nice blender), the agony of my workouts, the happiness of finding Michele, a person I could finally trust and call my best friend. This wasn't The Tour de France, but it was my Tour de France. It was a defining moment for me and it served as a reminder that I could come back from my own rock bottom and achieve greatness. As I came the final 100m into the finish line I could hear Michele over everybody else cheering. The announcer was yelling my name over the PA. I came across the finish line, lungs bleeding, legs quivering, hands in the air, the weight of the world finally lifting off my shoulders.