Friday Follies ~~ Chasing Miles

When I was a kid, like many of you, riding a bike was something I just did.  I looked forward to times when I could get on the bike, and more I looked for excuses to do so.  The bike and I were enough.  I didn’t pay a lot of attention to how much I rode, how far I’d gone, or how I rode.  Sometimes riding was hard.  Sometimes it was slow.  But it was all just riding my bike.

I’ve had times like that since.  Sometimes those periods have stretched out for years.

In my late teens and early twenties I discovered road bikes, and racing.  At first, I just rode my bike a lot, and raced when I could.  I started wearing “funny clothing”  (mostly made from wool), and took myself way too seriously.

At the beginning of my racing, I was fairly successful.  I had good results.  Then, as I advanced, I met some real competition, and I didn’t do so well.  I started studying and taking advice.  I started training.

Training was not an entirely new concept.  I’d already spent a large part of my life in various forms of athletics.  I had a pretty good idea (I thought) of what training meant.

My early experiences with coaching advice for cycling were not all that bad.  I took advice from my track coach, and from a few friendly older riders and officials.  I read a good bit.

In those days we didn’t have the instrumentation that we have now.  So training and workout structures tended to rely on time, and rough estimates of effort.  A workout instruction would sound like this:

            “Go out and get well warmed up.  Then find a good hard hill.  Climb it real hard.  Then descend and get your breath back.  Keep doing that for about an hour.  Then warm down.”

There were a lot of variations, but that was the gist of it.  Do a thing for a time, at some kind of effort level.

Somewhere in there, I was introduced to the idea of keeping a Training Log.  I have done so ever since.  It helps keep me honest, and on track, and helps me to diagnose problems.  It’s also (unlooked for bonus) a diary, stretching back over many years of riding, a reminder of things both good and bad that have occurred to my while riding.

Cyclocomputers and heart rate monitors changed just about everything.  Suddenly it was possible to know exactly how far I’d ridden, and (to some degree of accuracy) how hard.

Shortly after I gained the capacity to log miles, I read that so-and-so (insert name of big and famous racer) rode umpty-ump miles per year.  I read that most serious racers logged 3500 miles per year, and that, if one was really dedicated to advancing, the mileage would be much greater than that.  I didn’t pay much attention to that at the time.  I was already most of the way through a year.  But I did add a cumulative mileage function to my training logs.

The next year, I set a goal.  It was a goal in terms of miles ridden cumulatively.  Like many of my early goals, it was not very well informed, and largely unrealistic.

By the end of April, I was well behind my target, but not worried, as I still had much of the year ahead, and the worst of the weather behind.

Mid June arrived, and I was way behind my goal mileage.  I am serious about goals, so I set out to rectify the situation.  I set a revised schedule of miles to be ridden per month, week, and day.  I worked assiduously to do a bit more than goal on each ride.  I started to catch up to my target.

But other things happened too.  I wasn’t getting the results in my races.  I was tired and irritable.  I started to dread the rides.  I’d made cycling a job!  It wasn’t fun any more.

Late in the year, I suffered a cycling related skeletal injury.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was most likely somewhat a result of overtraining and fatigue.  I certainly aggravated it by attempting to get back into my “program” way too soon.

I’d fallen farther behind my mileage goal.  By the end of the year, I was actually, secretly, looking forward to getting off the bike for a while.  I didn’t make the annual goal miles.

The next year was a repeat of the previous one.  I had less fun, and worse results, and more injuries.  I was attempting to follow the Eddy Merckx training plan.  (Ride.  Lots.)  But there was one significant problem.  I am not Eddy Merckx.

While I wasn’t looking a revolution was taking place.  Along came Tudor Bompa, Joe Friel, et al.  The concept of periodized training was revolutionizing all of athletic training.  Wisely does the sage Friel say,  “Most of the riding that most cyclist perform is simply the accumulation of junk miles.”  (Emphasis mine.)  Friel’s point is that the mere accumulation of mileage is rather pointless, and most of us are riding in a region that is too hard to build all important base, and too easy to be of any use in increasing stamina.  At the same time we are beating ourselves to a pulp, and overtraining.

When I read that, it was like the sun coming up, in brilliant glory, after a long dark night.

Mileage is a byproduct of proper training.  It is also a byproduct of simply riding to get somewhere, or of riding for the sheer joy of riding.  Oops.  Riding for miles has a nasty habit of sucking all the oxygen out of riding.

I’m glad to see a lot of folks tracking their mileage.  I just hope we aren’t falling into a trap, and bowing down before the altar of a false god.

I confess, it’s fun to see the miles mount up, as a good year of riding progresses.  But it’s the riding that matters.