One of my favorite sports personalities is Dennis Conner, the skipper responsible for being the first to lose, then win back the America's Cup, the oldest trophy in sports. In a book titled No Excuse to Lose he outlines what he calls commitment to the commitment. Esentially, he says that unless you make certain priorities in your life, nothing great can be accomplished. His commitment was to winning back The Cup and did so in dramatic fashion. Its impossible he says, to be the best business man, best clergy, best father and best sailor all at the same time. One or more of those areas won't be given the attention it needs in order to be the best.
There in lies my quest. I will never give up my family for cycling. I would love to make cycling my profession, but that just isn't reality. So sometimes I will have weeks like the last 2 where something had to give.
The end of the quarter is always a busy and stressful time at the bank. Things have to get done and sales targets need to be met. Add to that a 22 month old daughter who refuse to sleep through the night. I also run a small cycling team and promote a few races. Planning for those is also in high gear. Getting some quality training in has been tough and my diet was less than ideal for fueling all of this stress. I always have a hard time with time changes as well.
I did mange to get on my bike however. The only real days that I didn't make were Tues and Thurs core and strenght workouts. I opted for an extra 1.5 hrs of sleep those days. I've added intervals to my rides on the trainer and I'm feeling a surprising amount of fatigue from that I think. I also managed to get out on Saturday with some guys from the team. We rode 3.5 hours, the first 2 at a very fast pace. The new recruits are really making us step up. It will be 45 minutes of intervals and 30 minutes of tempo tomorrow morning. Then on Saturday we'll put in 4-5 hours if the weather holds up.
The Saturday ride was also on my new steed, the Mercury Titan.
The bike is amazing. So smooth. My bike last year, a top of the line Velo Vie 300 SE, was very light and stiff but sacrificed ride quality to get there. It was fast but rattled my teeth a little bit more than I liked. The Mercury is equally stiff when pedaling but all the tooth aches are gone. Its spec'd with SRAM Force, Mercury 50 mm full carbon clincher wheels, Mercury carbon stem, a Bontrager XXX Lite carbon handle bar and Look Keo 2 Max pedals. For the last 6,000 miles my saddle has been a Performance $39 special. I loved that thing but it was wearing. Turns out Performance doesn't carry the saddle any more. After a quick Google, I found the same saddle branded by Velo. So my keester is nice and comfy on familar form. Thanks to our sponsors Mercury Bikes, Velonology, SRAM and The Bike Shoppe for setting me up with such an awesome machine. Lets hope my motor gets up and makes good use of such a great tool!
No comments:
Post a Comment