There is a massage guy in Boulder that a lot of the pro peloton use. He was telling me a story about a rider (who will remain nameless) that was racing Paris Roubaix one year. Said rider had crashed in the lead-up to the race and was in rough shape (broken wrist I think) but his team really needed him to control the race and put in a solid day to help their #1 guy go for the win. He felt so awful in the opening K’s of the race when the pace picked up that he waited until the first cobble section and purposely went into a sharp turn with waaaaaay too much speed. He took a nasty crash on purpose so that he could get an adrenaline dump and ride like the team needed him to. He went over the bars over a fence but remounted and stayed in it for a few hours to help his squad.
Good plan. Gonna punch myself in the nads for an adrenaline surge, next time!
EDIT:
This is too good, I can’t stop thinking about this.
(wife hears loud crash from back room, runs in to find me on floor, clutching my junk)
Wife: What happened?!
Me: AArrrrraaaaaaggghhaaaaa I hit myself in the yods!
Wife: Why?
Me: BLLAAAaaaarrraaahhaaaaaa I needed to finish a workout!
Wife: Are you stupid? What kind of workout needs that sort of adrenaline
(wife looks at screen, stares for a second)
Wife: What the hell is ‘Taku’?
Lots of these posts really resonate with me. I think the same thing when I’m having trouble getting through intervals. I think “It’s too hard…” and want to stop, but then I say “This is where your gains come from… when it’s really hard and everyone else starts giving up, but you’re able to continue”.
I also try to picture just BARELY pulling away from someone in a race… Beating them by just a few watts where even 1 workout could make the difference.
Lastly, I’m constantly trying to justify not working out and I picture my competitors sitting around having a beer or sleeping while I’m in the garage working hard. Everyone’s motivation comes from a different place, but this seems to work for me!
“Okay, five minutes left, that’s just 2:30 twice”
“Four minutes - that’s 240 seconds. That’s nothing.”
“Okay, two and a half minutes left, just a 150 seconds”
“A minute forty – That’s just 100 seconds, not even in the triple digits anymore. I’ve got this.”
Subdivision and delusion continues to end of interval.
Also - “Can’t quit now, you worked so hard to be this tired. These are the REALLY beneficial ones now”
I’m also all about the time left. The intervals with the little ups/downs that the timer sees as separate really mess with my head…Then I start thinking back to the description of how long the intervals were and trying to remember when this interval started so I can do the math to figure out how long I have left.
Oh man those ones totally mess with me too. I’m constantly counting the little one minute segments to figure out how much total time is left in the interval. Annoying, but it’s also a distraction I guess.
I’m a counter as well. I like to match my breathing with my cadence and my breath. My go to is to count my cadence on the exhale and alternate between right and left side. When it hurts, it hurts, but I just keep counting.
I don’t know which workout it came up in, but Chad inserted the following during a sequence of anaerobic efforts: “More pain, more power, more speed, more endurance”.
