The Long Road

I had a rare chance to get out for a weekday long ride with my friend, Laura. We were inspired to ride a bit further than our typical distance after seeing the gals in our age groups at Hincapie Gran Fondo finish their 80+ mile rides looking strong and happy. What does it take, we wondered, to ride a challenging course like that, and finish strong?

The context of every one of my rides - and my blog posts, for that matter - is that of an "older" athlete. Although I'm still clinging to the waning months of my 50th decade, and Laura is in the Social Security range, we're still doing all the things we would do as if we were decades younger. We honestly don't think about our age at all (except for when we sign up for races that have age categories). Nowhere do we bring age into our race or event planning, just our ability and aptitude. 

And, sometimes, our curiosity. Because it's been a while since either of us has committed to a long and challenging ride, this was also a ride of discovery: how we would feel being on the bike for this long, were we prepared for all the hills on this route, would we put long rides back into our training rotation or would we do them only when necessary, or never again?

And just when did a 60-mile* ride become a "long ride", in my reality? I used to get out at least once a week to ride longer distances, most of them solo miles, all of them hours-long endeavors through the ups and downs of the Cuyahoga Valley. Long ride days were something I looked forward to, and they probably played a huge role in the fitness I enjoyed when they were part of my training habit. 

At some point, I fell off that wagon. Life brings constant changes, and almost imperceptibly I change with it. Job situations, new commitments, dynamic social environments all evolve, and our days evolve with them. The cycling-focused mindset that drove my lifestyle in the past has given way to a routine that is more inclusive of things not bike related. This is both good and bad. Good in that I have more things to talk about with more people than just my athlete friends. Bad because I don't remember how I was able to fit in all those group rides, solo excursions, and hard training days - and so I forgot how hard I used to work to maintain that lifestyle.  

One day, you're enjoying the ease of a strong body and the joy of movement as you breeze through the miles, the next day you're slogging up a familiar hill and wondering when the road will end. The tragedy of life, I'm finding, is the impermanence of the things we love the most. 

The long ride with Laura wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. To be honest, I didn't actually think I'd be able to effortlessly slip back into long rides without training for them, but I kind of hoped I would.  Anymore it feels like all I'm doing is desperately clawing my way back to where I was. Sometimes I wonder if  trying to reclaim 'the way things were' is even worth the pursuit. It's a lot harder now than it was back then. 

As we ticked off the miles and hours of our ride, I knew that 60 miles was enough for me that day. The last mildly uphill mile felt like a small mountain, and I was happy to roll into the parking lot to finish. High fives and smiles and a few selfies, and our long ride was successfully completed.

Later that day, after I had a chance to recover (coffee, short nap) and replenish (eat everything in the house) I was eager to schedule my next long ride day. I was also 100% committed to doing what I needed to do to be the rider who could, once again, pick up and go, feeling strong and confident and capable on the long road. 

Clearly, the "long ride" aspect of my athletic journey isn't over yet. There are still long (and longer!) rides ahead, and I'm willing to rise to their challenges. After today, I know what I have to do to bring my "A" game, and I'm determined to do just that. 

*60, not the 80 that we first considered after the Gran Fondo. 60 felt like a good place to start. 

The Mother of All Ouija Boards

I'm not the nostalgic type, but today would have been my Mom's 90th birthday.

I always hate when people say things like that. 'My Dad would have been 133 years old today', or 'Aunt Jane would have been making pierogis for Easter, if she hadn't wandered behind the tractor the day that Uncle Jimmy was backing it out of the barn'.

Also for the record: I'm not religious, I don't believe in the supernatural, and I know - just as sure as everyone 'knows' what happens after we die - that when you're dead, you're dead. The End. No knocks on walls. No secret messages played through the radio. Those 'angels' that you see when you take a video on your cell phone? Those are DUST PARTICLES darting around your house. You don't need an exorcist, you need a vacuum cleaner. 

So what, IMO, happens after you die? It will feel EXACTLY as it did all those years before you were born. Same thing, different side of the teeny weeny little slice of consciousness we call life. Remember what that was like? Of course you don't, and you won't know after you die, either. 

So why was I compelled to go into the junk closet in the basement, the one with all the things that I need to get rid of but just can't, for whatever reason? And why was I compelled to rifle through the old games and puzzles and pull out a Ouija board, of all things? I cannot tell you why. I just know that it's what I did, on this day that would have been my Mom's 90th birthday.

The thing about Ouija boards is this: when you get a group of people who are putting the teeniest bit of pressure on the little plastic triangle with the hole cut out for spelling purposes, there is some sort of energy that causes the thing to move. I'm not saying that there might not be some clown in the group that is directly responsible for the 'voices from the beyond' e.g. maybe deliberately or subconsciously moving the piece around the board to get to the 'answer' they want. And I certainly don't believe AT ALL that there is a presence from the otherworld guiding the hands to reveal a message. But what I do think is that the collective (will/apprehension/excitement) of the Ouija players allows for the thing (what's it called, anyway?) to move around the board as if by mysterious forces. Kind of like how my fingers often write words on paper, like this, that don't seem to come from my own head.

I digress. There was nobody home but me. There was no earthly reason for me to pull out the Ouija board, especially since I couldn't "play" it the way it was intended. You need more than one person driving. But I took it out of the box. Put it on the table. Put the plastic triangle thingy (I just learned it's called a "planchette". Look it up.) on the board, in the empty space between the letters and the numbers. I take a sip of my tepid afternoon coffee. I rested my fingers very lightly on the edge of the planchette. 

I waited.

As I waited, I thought about my Mom. At first, my thoughts went to those last few years of her life, the ones spent in a gradual decline in health, and ending with a last dose of morphine in a nursing home. I try to forget those years but their memory has burned a hole in my brain that can't be repaired. Those memories come up first, every time. 

Then I worked backwards. The years after my Dad died, before her Parkinson's diagnosis, when she lived alone in her little home, by herself, for almost 20 years. Stubborn and strong, she kept herself busy with anything she could. Volunteering, working part time in a church office, creating projects for herself. Eventually being a grandma - probably the thing in her life that she most cherished was being a grandma. My fingers tap the planchette. 

And before that: the fun years with my Dad, all of the family together. Road trips, day trips, teenage years, swim lessons, piano lessons, arguments around the supper table. Chaos. Life is noisy, messy, and loud - I've come to this realization only lately. Credit the screaming baby on the airplane. Loud and fussy = very much alive. Life is not meant to be quiet, or still. Still life means a bowl of fruit and maybe a dead goose in some oil on canvas from a bygone era. Inanimate objects on a flat canvas - this is not life! Life doesn't stand still, life is constant movement. The planchette still hasn't moved.

All those birthdays we celebrated. The cake, the off key singing. The cards and gifts. Celebrations of life, while we're still alive. 

I don't know what I was thinking, that I was drawn to this stupid board. I can remember my Mom without feeling the need to 'channel' her. I have photos I can look at, plenty of memories buried deep in the grey matter that will come out when I need them. She's always there, somewhere, when I need her. Like she always was. 

I take my hands off the planchette. Pick up my coffee cup and now it's room temperature. Mom always drank her coffee black.

The planchette moves. I stop mid-sip and see it slide it's way to the bottom of the board. 

"Good Bye"

Just Try: Preparing your mind to do hard things

The more the road tipped upward, the more I felt my willpower slipping away. Each pedal stroke felt like it would be the last one before I convinced myself that I had to stop, that I can't do this. I had been here before, after all, and the voice in my head that gave me permission to bail out last time was getting louder. 

Is it 'quitting', really, if I just stop for a moment, take a short break, and then hop back on?

Maybe not, but where is the satisfaction in overcoming a challenge when you end up throwing in the towel (again)? I had to remind myself I was - up until a moment ago - very determined to finish this climb without stopping. It was a driving force to return to this same place, to ride up this same road. I was craving redemption.

We train our bodies to do hard things. We generally have a good sense of what we're in for, and we prepare for it. What we're not so good at is preparing our thought processes to overcome self-doubt.

Mental skills training has become a hot topic for me lately. After attending the Endurance Exchange back in early January, and hearing what Dr. Scott Frey had to say about perception of effort, I find myself going down the rabbit hole.

This is not a new interest for me. I've been fascinated by how the brain controls so many aspects of athletic performance, and not just perception of effort. Motivation, willingness to do the work (some would say 'suffer'),  the things we tell ourselves during training and racing - all of it plays a critical role in outcome. And yet we rarely give mental training the same attention we give to our strength and endurance training.

The power of our thought processes to overcome difficult challenges is impressive, and undeniable. My good friend Jill told me that when the going gets tough (on the bike), she tells herself to JUST TRY. 

Many words can be written about how we're supposed to be able to swap in a positive thought (JUST TRY) when our brains are in the throes of overwhelming negativity (I can't do this). 

The simple answer is that it takes practice. Mental toughness and positive self talk are trainable responses - but rarely are they automatic. If you want to do hard things - and I do* - then you have to teach your brain to not put up roadblocks, or give you easy exit ramps. Start by changing the inner dialogue. 

When I knew for sure that this was the last possible pedal stroke, I thought of Jill's mantra and I actually said aloud (through my last dying gasps): JUST TRY.  It immediately shifted my mental focus from "I have to stop" to "Can I do this?" I wasn't sure if I could, but there was only one way to find out.

Will you try it? Will you fail? Will you succeed? I don't know. Only one way to find out.

___________________________________________

My friend and fellow Stelleri athlete, Pat Spencer, is currently working on a mental skills coaching program for women athletes. Stay tuned for more info when this becomes available. Also check out Pat's services through her mental skills coaching company website, Getting Your Mind in Gear. 

*It's been too long since I last rode the epic climbs of Death Valley, but there are plans in the works to change that, in just over a year from now. 

What I learned from a 30-day yoga 'challenge'

Laz brings his yoga props and shares my mat

At the start of a new year, all kinds of opportunities exist for establishing new behaviors.

The more popular 'challenges' typically revolve around alcohol, nutrition, or some exercise habit. I have no interest in any of those. 

I don't necessarily love anything that resembles, even remotely, a 'resolution' - especially those perennial ones. (Seriously, if you're my age and you're still making the same annual resolutions around basic healthy habits, you aren't being honest with yourself.)

And yet I found myself drawn to the 30-day Yoga Journey, an annual (and free!) daily yoga session from the fabulous Adriene Mishler (and her mat-mate cattle dog, Benji), offered every January. 

Why yoga, and why this? I've been an on-and-off practitioner of yoga for many years. I almost always find it to be just the thing my body needs on any given day - whether it's a stretch, or a balance hold, or a functional movement that my rather uni-planar lifestyle isn't accustomed to doing.

The operative 'almost' is what makes my yoga practice so sporadic. Like the time I took a class and all we did was chair pose. Or the 'lunchtime break' class that exceeded its time limit and made me late for an afternoon commitment. I expect to leave yoga with more 'zen' than I came in with, but that's not reality. 

In any case, the Yoga Journey gave me something different and new to do, and I am a firm believer that novelty is what keeps us from going out of our minds. I  know that shaking up my daily routine gives me the opportunity to think differently about how I move about my day, and that simple change can be the difference in my perception of 'good day' vs. 'bad day'. 

So I started every morning in January with yoga, and there are some things I learned along the way:

• I like yoga that only lasts 20 minutes or so. The shorter, the better. 
• Shivasana is over-rated. We didn't really do it, and I certainly didn't miss it. 
• I have really bad balance, particularly on one side of my body.
• I really, really have lost a lot of flexibility over the years, but that is about to change.
• Knowing that after yoga I will be making a pot of French Press coffee makes the Yoga Journey that much sweeter.
• If I can get on my mat expediently, I can have coffee sooner. 
• If I truly feel the need to learn Crow Pose, I have to work at it daily. Or I can be honest with myself (see above) and just give up and move on.
• Adriene's calm voice thanking me for giving up my precious time and energy to 'meet her on the mat' every day made me realize that my time and energy are precious - and limited. This epiphany helped me cut through the clutter, so to speak, and gave me strength to say "no" to requests for my time and energy that didn't serve me. I hope to remember this lesson for a long time.
• I can focus my attention, albeit temporarily, to my yoga practice in spite of morning chaos (otherwise known as Laszlo, see photo)
• I truly hope to continue a daily morning practice for the way it makes me feel grounded.

Wish me luck in my commitment to this practice. Or better yet, join me!

If you took the Yoga Journey, I'd love to hear your thoughts.