chillin' with my newphew Justin aka superchunk.
That's what I ask myself each morning when I wake up and think about laying in bed bagging a rollers ride or a run. You know when you get home from work and feel just whooped. I can bag tonight. No worries. Then I ask myself, "just how serious about this are you? Is this worth it ?I ask myself this each time I pass by the krispy kreme donuts that the kind ladies at work bring in. Look, I make no bones about my place in the world as a cyclist. In the MAC/MABRA I'm not even a blip on the freaking screen. However, I don't want to look back at this season and say, " I should have, I could have..." I want to give my best, everyday. Now sometimes this doesn't always work out, but during cross were everything is intensified 20x vs. a 2-3 hour mountain bike race, I find myself asking myself more than ever, " how serious are you about this ?" I want to have my best rides at the biggest races of the year, and very frankly, my best rides are still ahead of me. I know it.
Speaking of the candy bowl. Holy crap I got on the scale the other day and Fatmarc was quickly approaching off-season weight. YIKES! It's been like a pound a week since cross started. That folks is no good. Despite cranking up the intensity, my overall hours on the bike for the week have been drastically cut down. Instead of riding 2-3 hours a day, now it's suffer for an hour. Regardless, the caloric output is reduced, the caloric intake remained the same. Hell, who am I kidding, I have had a hell of a craving for bacon the past few weeks. End result, fatmarc is packing on some extra LBS. And so last weekend I looked at my bloated naked self in the mirror and said, "how serious are you about this?" I put down the Twix bar. Put down that vanilla malt milkshake. (don't even ask why I was eating a Twix, drinking a milkshake starring at myself naked in a mirror) I said "self, you get a handle on your caloric in take." Good news. 4 days in, and I'm starting to shed some of that extra luggage. 5 weeks left. A pound a week will get me where I want to be. In the end, it is all worth it, if nothing else to say, I gave my fucking best.
respect
fatmarc
7 comments:
I hear you on the weight thing... To make myself feel better, I tell myself the weight is attributed to my sprint muscles growing!!!
Tremendous picture painting marc.
When I was raing for Yeti waaayyyy back I used to wrestle with demons a.k.a. how much do I want to do knowing I know I'll never win a race. fair and reasonable questioning now that I look back on it, but, I'd train and be in impecable shape, at 5'9" tall weighing between 149-158 lbs most of it legs and butt cheek muscles, I was in my prime, and flaying problem everyone ( Tinker, Mike King, Dave Weins.. etc etc. were flying faster, leaving no spots left not only on the podium but no spots with a mile of the podium. I was a field filler basically, but I did some shredding in my own little world anyway and had fun with it.
Looking back now after being forcibly removed from bike racing due to first head injuries then broken bones with impending surgeries, I have acquired a new found love for just the distant smell of fitness and potentially lining up at a starting line with other like minded amateur racers, having fun on a weekend/weekday outing. I also have found a new love and passion for waking up early looking at my wife sleep, peeking in on the kids sleeping, dressing and rolling down the road for a cobweb-breaker moring ride. It's become new to me again. But, since I am a more mature ( somewhat anyway) man, who sat in a wheel chair for a time contemplating whether I'd ever walk again, I cherrish every second I have on my bike, I am wayyy more conscious of my body now and enjoy seeing what I can sculpt from what my mom and dad gave me. My mother and sister were gym rats ( sis still is, lean and vicious )dad is gone, passed away. We all get to that crossroads of KK or tofu, I say eat the f-ing donut. I gave them up until I learn to manage my broken and worn out body, then I'll have a love affair with KK and add the extra miles in to absolve my self of the mental booboo I committed by indulging in bad food.
I'd say if you are seroius about yourself, take yourself seriously, it's not about next weeks race, it's about 30 years down the road when you're sitting in front of your fireplace looking at pictures and talking with friends reflecting and saying things like, "ohhh, dude, remember this race?." I wish I had trained harder, I wonder If I could have finished a little better. But that is the problem, being the competitve cyclists that we are, we compete with our own visions and dreams. Who the fuck would want to go for a bike ride in the freezing rain? Me, because I know it is good for me and I can;t wait to feel the high afterwards, you because you want to maybe be able to stomp Gunnar or Yozell, once, just fucking once maybe, so they watch you out of the corner of their eyes. believe me, they do the same things you are doing, no difference. Life is about work ethic, in any format. You have a great job, you worked hard to earn the respect to be given that job, why should bike racing be any different?
I look at the donuts and cake in season as the business mans/womans after dinner drinks, why indulge if your performance will suffer and make you feel like shit at the weekly meeting or sales conference. Why do it? It's essentially an undoing.
On the bacon front, it's a caveman thing, eat the fucking bacon and go ride, bacon makes you happy.
Seems like a lot of us are having these twix-milkshake ephiphanies... I just got started on my "no candy/no junk food/whole fruits and vegetables" diet on Sunday... so I'm 4 days in as well.
It sucks, and me wants a f@#($*&@$ twix bar!!!!
As someone who used to push 3 bills I gotta say learning to like food that is good for you and cooked good is key. Cooking you own food is huge asset too. I try to be good 5 or 6 days a week and indulge in some tasty beer and food on the weekend. Good luck. I wouldn't worry to much about it.
Later.
JM
Marc,
You're startin' early man. I'm used to hearing this in early spring when the roadies all stand around before the race start seeing if they can pinch an inch.
We spouse/significant other types just stand around behind them rolling our eyes and sucking in a gut at the same time. :) Not a small feat!
Good luck with the weight loss - you'll be lookin' good for those holiday photos!
Cheryl M
I like to justify it. Donuts, after all, are a great source of quite energy. Donut first, bike afterward. You win on both fronts.
Marc, Jill has a great point, and she seems pretty convincing.
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