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Early Days
I started racing at the 24 Hours of Moab about 13 years ago. I was not racing at the time, not even riding much really. There was no time. Mind and body numbing 80 hour work weeks were one of the many benefits of owning a small bike company I enjoyed back then, so I had stopped most physical activity other than fretting a lot about coming up with the money to pay bills and drinking coffee to stay awake. 
Unlike some of the other heirlooms of the early days in MTBs, I did not come into the sport through racing. Mr. Fisher and Mr. Ritchey were road racing stars before they started riding bikes with fat tires, but I came in from a technical angle. Also, I am 52 now, so you can do a little math and see that I got into it late by racing standards.
Entering my first race wasn’t even my fault really. There were two people who worked with me at the old shop who were to blame, Juli Rae and Steve. They rode a lot and were passionate about it. They told me I should race on a team with them in the 24 Hours of Moab, out in Utah (actually they just told me I was going to race as I recall, without giving me a choice). I had no idea what they were talking about – I’d never heard of 24 hour racing. But they were smiling and I trusted them. I probably should have given it a second thought, and most people would have, but in a moment of weakness I agreed and was in.
The same year I had a strange thing happen when I was attending a bike trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Some people came up to me in the booth and asked me if I was Bontrager. I said yes. Actually I said something like “Ja, Ich bin Keith” in a not very convincing variant of German (this and Moab have a connection – you’ll see). After a very quick chat (limited by my weak German), it turned out they were named Borntraeger, which is pretty close, and they lived just down the road in Langenargen. They’d never met me before or seen a picture, but they spotted me by my slack posture, explaining later that it is a family trait. This was getting deeper. Later that week I met their son Kai and daughter Saskia. We went out to dinner and became friends.
It turned out that my familial connection with the German Borntragers was real. Johann Martin Borntraeger was the first B in the USA in the late 1700s. He was Amish. I knew that much. When we looked at their very extensive family tree JMB was on it, at the end of a branch. I know my roots back to the 15th century now, and they know more about their American relatives. It’s a small world sometimes.
During my visit Saskia mentioned that she was planning a holiday but hadn’t worked out where to go yet. She asked if she could come to California to hang out and ride her bike (a very nice steel Bontrager Race lite of course). I said sure. It’s always fun to show someone around Santa Cruz, the trails are great and everyone who comes enjoys it. Cool. 
Saskia flew in to California the day before we were to leave for the race in Moab. She got off the plane after a 12 hour flight and into a car for 20+ hours of driving (The US is a big country). Lucky her. She didn’t complain though. We loaded a small crowd of people and a big pile of bikes and camping stuff into my car (maybe that’s why they wanted me to go!) and hit the road.
She enjoyed herself on her Moab holiday. She didn’t race, but she rode all around Moab and had fun. Then, after the long drive back, she rode around on the trails in Santa Cruz every day, guided by Juli Rae, a rider with amazing technical skills. A gifted technical rider leading an enthusiastic beginner on great singletrack – dangerous stuff. But Saskia survived, and improved daily. She was a natural on a mountain bike.
Back to Moab - the details of my first race there are not pretty. It was hard. I crashed. And I cramped. And I puked too. I had to spend almost all the time I had between laps in the port-o-can with an exploding stomach. That’s most of what I remember about it. So this is racing…
Given the highlights and my lack of fitness you’d probably guess I was slow on the course, and you’d be right. Looking back on it the suffering I went through on my first try at 24 hour racing was inevitable though. I had no idea what I was doing. Besides having poor fitness, I ate wrong, didn’t rest and recover, and was badly dehydrated during the entire race. I’d tried to go too fast on the first lap and was completely shattered after that. The only thing I managed to avoid was a crash worthy of a trip to the emergency room, though I came close on that too. In the end I suffered about as much as I ever have at anything, probably more. It was an interesting weekend. But somehow I managed to finish all 3 of my laps. If there was supposed to have been a 4th, I am sure I would not be here to tell this story.
You’d think an experience like that would be my the last of my 24 hour racing. But, in spite of all of that (or possibly because of it - there are clearly some weird reasons that endurance events are addictive) I wanted to do it again a few weeks afterward. Nobody seemed to care about how slow I was riding, or if they did they didn’t heckle me about it, which was cool. I felt like I just had to finish them. And finishing the laps felt great, like I had accomplished something. I gave it my best shot (which wasn’t always very good). And there was nothing to compare to the feeling of standing by the finish line at noon on the second day. This is too deep to write about – you have to do it to know what it means.
It turned out that the trip was an epic for Saskia in other ways too. Her rapid and total immersion into off road cycling was the nudge she needed to change a lot of things she had wanted to change in her life. You probably know how that works – you aren’t happy with the way things are going and then something comes along and changes you. You are open to it of course, so while it might seem accidental, and it is to some extent, it isn’t entirely. She got out of the rut she was in, made new friends on rides, both in Santa Cruz and in Germany, and rode more. Some of these folks were racers (some very accomplished racers), so she rode harder, and she got faster. She bought a road bike (A steel Road lite of course), and the road miles made her even faster, and she rode more because of that. The hard rides always seemed to make her stronger. She was always happy when she was on her bike and a lot happier off the bike too. It went on and on and it was great to see.
Her enthusiasm for Moab and Santa Cruz was infectious. She went back to Germany and told her family about her holiday, and both she and Kai came over to race the next year. Kai was a strong, experienced cyclist. He ripped it up in Moab. He also ended up living in Santa Cruz later on, and working at Bontrager Cycles for 6 months as an intern to complete his mechanical engineering degree. He was in his element with good trails and bikes everywhere, and did very well in every respect.
It was not as clear what would happen when Saskia actually raced though. Moab is a tough place, not like the trails she had been riding in Germany. She had not been riding that long. She had been getting stronger and more confident over the year between holidays though, and was feeling good about that. At one point she proposed a friendly wager between us – the fastest lap at Moab that year won dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. The slower rider paid, but went along for the meal of course. It wasn’t a serious bet – neither of us really needed an excuse to go out for an Italian meal. But how fast was she?
Fast. She got around the course very quickly and showed up back at the camp before anyone expected her, in an hour and twenty minutes or so. That is a very respectable lap time there, and she managed it in a year of cycling. She was a mountain bike racer.
I shocked her though and won the dinner bet by a few ticks. She said I won because I was willing to suffer more and she might have been right. One look of me after the first lap and most people would have come to the same conclusion. I was hunched over my bike and couldn’t move at all for quite a while. (This turned out to be a common thing for me at that race - there is a long, big ring finishing straight and the effort you make on this can leave you completely rubber legged at the end of a lap).
It was a fine meal, but the effort to win the bet turned out to be much better for me than the dinner. We’d made the bet months before the race. I knew she was riding a lot, and, given how fast she was coming along I thought she’d be fairly fast by the time she got here. I would have to be ready for that somehow. But there was hope. I’d finally trimmed my workload down a bit (by selling my company to Trek!) so I was actually able to ride a bit, and I did, because of the bet. The wager pushed me and I got fitter. Unlike joining a gym, or paying for some sort of structured training program, things I would not do due to an inherently bad attitude about those things this was easy. (I apologize for that to the training pros that read this – if it works for you, go for it).
The silly bet made me set a goal and then stay on track to accomplish it. I’d done that before years before in other areas of my life, but had lost track of it while in the small business ownership meat grinder. The goal was one I took on myself without a grand plan, but it was the right sort to motivate me to work hard at it. It was attainable (though I didn’t know it at the time) and it worked out.
The lesson and connection to 24 hour races stuck with me too. These events were nearly perfect for me – they were physically and technically difficult, they require physical and mental preparation to do well, and there are lots of subtle things to work on and ways to improve. And the scene at the races was cool. The racers were friendly, the events were low pressure affairs that combine good racing with a good dose of socializing, and they were in amazing places. It’ was a rare mix.
As an aside, it’s a lucky thing for me that we didn’t bet on a race in the Alps or Dolomites. Saskia kept improving and was soon a much better climber than I was. She would have crushed me easily in the mountains. She went on to ride well in the TransAlp Challenge a few years later and is still riding a lot, though she has been tempted to the dark side (freeriding) lately. I am afraid Kai has abandoned cycling seriously and has gone on to race sailboats. His father is a sailor though, and he lives on the edge of Lake Constance, so it is easy enough to understand.
The Next Level (and a wild one in AZ)
I liked the way things were going at that point. I was starting to get a feel for racing in the 24 hour events, not going that fast, but not going a little faster all the time. And I was enjoying the challenge. Because of that I started riding on teams in other 24 hour races all over the country. This was easier for me than it would be for some because of the Trek connection -I was starting to be invited to races after the dealers and sales reps knew I was into it. Trek wanted me there too - it was one of the benefits of my job.
None of these efforts were especially competitive, though we managed to get up into the top third a few times. The teams were not there to win and everyone knew it. They were friends, and friends of friends, not always people who raced bikes a lot. I always pushed myself though, always did my best on the laps I rode. That was one of the things that struck me as being so cool about 24 hour racing. You could challenge yourself, push yourself, race the clock, encourage the others you were racing with, and come away happy without worrying about the overall results. The folks racing these all seemed to get it, even the guys at the front of the race.
One of the most important personal aspects of this was that I was learning to deal with a fear of failure, one with a personal and public twist. Riding hard does not bother me much, even though it hurts. But knowing that I am failing, and knowing that others see that I am failing has never been easy for me. It’s an odd thing in many ways, and is fueled by my own weirdness with being a (very minor) celeb. This, in my not very well informed or thought out pop-psychological opinion is a factor in what holds many people back from doing things they should be doing.
Racing in these also taught me how to deal with the technicalities of 24 hour races. I made a lot of mistakes, but got things right sometimes too, and I learned a lot. I learned about the importance of testing your lights before you leave for the race, and getting good ones to start with (don’t ask). I learned about racing in mud, roots and rocks too. Everywhere you go the terrain changes, and the challenge changes. That has been very useful when designing tires by the way.
In some ways racing got a little easier. My recovery rituals started to take shape - I knew what to do (and what not to do) between laps, and when to do it. I rode some double laps and some substitute laps for injured riders on a short recovery schedule, things I could not have done initially. It was hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be. I started to have some confidence, something I didn’t have at first. I had ridden enough laps to know I could do it.
The actual pushing on the pedals part of racing didn’t ever change much though. This Is not a new idea - someone once asked Greg Lemond about what it felt like to win races and he said something like “It doesn't get easier; you just go faster”. Yep. It always hurts when you go as hard as you can, whether you are at the front or at the back. If it doesn’t hurt, you can go faster.
The odd thing is that this sort of pain can become easier to endure with practice. I know – that seems weird. (I am not going to turn this into a treatise on masochism, though it probably sounds like that at this point (though, given the weird way human brains work, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were similarities). But after a few races you know what’s coming, you know more or less what it is going to be like, and you know you have done it before and survived. And, of course, you can stop it if you want to stop it. The experience makes you confident that you can do it again. It seems strange, but it’s a good thing, and it is easy to get into the habit.
That ability to endure, and the perspective that you acquire on facing hardship makes you stronger and tougher in a lot of ways that are unrelated to cycling, if you get the full dose. It’s an odd feature of modern life that we need to find ways to do this during recreation, though there are certainly advantages to making it discretionary rather than a fact of daily life. But avoiding this sort of physical effort entirely seems to make us go haywire, mentally and physically. Tempting as it is 9if you’ve got the money),humans, as a species, do not do well for long as bliss ninnies. We seem to adapt well to the stresses that racing serve up. That’s what Mike Stroud was talking about in his book “The Survival of the Fittest”. (I am dragging him into this so I can justify my very unqualified opinion on the subject – I am dabbling, but he knows his stuff). Preparing for and succeeding at 24 hour racing is a very good way to get a decent dose. There are others. Pick your poison – it is good for you…
Some of the races I did were very epic. Check this one out:
The 24hrs of Adrenalin and the (Bad Luck) Bonty 5
[Kyle Bielenberg wrote this. He passed away Saturday, November 6th, 2004. Everyone that knew him misses him. Thanks to Jonny at Drunk Cyclist for keeping it up].
Oh, where do I start? So much to remember, so many fuzzy memories. The 24hrs of Adrenalin crew rolled into town last weekend to host a race on the Mc Dowell Mt. race loop (same venue which held the Nova Classic race a couple weeks ago). I got a call last week asking if I wanted to be on a 5man team put together by the man, the legend, Mr. Keith Bontrager. I’d never met him before but his name is recognized world wide as an Icon of the industry I love so much. What else do you say but HELL YEAH!
So, in true DC [Drunk Cyclist = www.drunkcyclist,com] style, we finally put together our team and entered a couple days before the event. My teammates consisted of Keith Bontrager (team captain), Colin McKernan, Jason Spencer, Dejay Birtch, and myself (Kyle Bielenberg). (Ok, so it was a little on the stacked side, those of you who don’t know these are some of the fastest Single Speed, Exp. and Semi-pro riders in the state and one legend) At about 10:00am day of the race our team starts rolling into the pits, yeah were a little late, but 2hrs is plenty of time to get prepared for a 24hr race. We all meet and discuss which sorry son of a bitch has to go first and do the Lemonade start. What do you know, it’s me…again. Seriously guys, I don’t like doing it, I just do it for the photo op.
It seems we have a problem with our team captain though. Before Keith flew out of California to come here on Fri. his nose started bleeding… bad. Were not talking a normal nosebleed, were talking uncontrolled spewing of blood from the nose. This poor bastard has been bleeding for a day straight, got blood all over his shirt, pant’s, and shoes. He has already been to the Dr. twice to get it cauterized and it didn’t work. He looks like he’s been in a car wreck, a little pale, little bit dizzy, blood everywhere. He tells us to start the race and he’s going to the Dr. one more time to try and get it fixed. No problem we tell him, got 4 of the strongest riders in AZ, we’ll just win it for you… but you have to finish one lap or we get disqualified.
Being damn close to noon, its time to get to the fucking start line. So I jump into my DC colors, take a couple swigs of crack in the can (a.k.a. Rockstar… think Redouble but twice the size and strength) and I’m ready to throw down. We line up and I guess they are offering some free shoes to the male and female winners of the Lemond start, oooh goodie! The gun go’s off and some freaks jump out to the lead wearing running shoes! WTF! I chase after them, but know I have a lap to put in so I’m pretty happy running in 5th. We get to the transition tent (very narrow area with the bikes hanging) and the motherfuckers who were chasing after the shoes stop dead in their tracks to change their shoes and grab water. "Get the fuck out of my way dipshits, before I run your ass over", I push through and grab the bike, what do you know I’m now in the lead. I take to the trail like a virgin to a whorehouse with a fist full of condoms. I’ve raced this trail enough times to know it like the back of my hand. But there is only one problem; the Nova Classic race has totally destroyed the trail. There are braking bumps the size of Anna Nicole’s ass, every berm and corner are blown to shit, and the washes are now about a 1’ deep of loose sand. Fuck me this course sucks ass, and the 20mph headwind isn’t making it any more enjoyable. After about 42 min of this bullshit I’m coming back through the start finish area with no one in sight, yeah I’m still in first. That’s right, the guy who was up till 1am drinking, pushing one gear, and wearing the Drunk Cyclist jersey, just schooled an entire field of 24hr racers.
I hand off to Colin, and send him off into the wind. He doesn’t get more than a mile and flats, the bad luck we had with Keith has continued. Colin still manages to pull a pretty good time and hands off to Dejay who proceeds to rock out a nice lap but not without his own issues. He manages to break off the main strap on his Sidi shoe and could not pull up on his right foot or it would come out, he’s on a SS too so you can imagine how difficult this is. Jason is our next man out, turns in a good time, but he somehow manages to flat not far into the lap as well. I’m seeing a pattern here and not liking it.
Since Keith is still at the ER trying to get his damn nose to stop bleeding, it’s my turn again. Whoa, wind’s have really picked up and seem to be blowing into your face from all directions. This may not be as fun as we had first thought. When I come back in and check the result’s, in 5 laps we have managed to put a 23min lead on 2nd place! We get back to the pits and start talking about our laps and bull shitting about other stuff, when some chick runs up to our campsite screaming, "Colin double flatted and needs tubes!" Oh shit! What the hell do we do?!? Dejay was half ready, so we tossed him a few extra tubes and a pump, and pushed him out of the tent. We had to cancel Colin’s lap before Dejay could start, and he was already 30min into his lap, so we were now 15min or so behind first place.
Finally some good news! Keith shows up after spending the last few hours sitting in the ER. There only solution/answer was to shoot his nose full of anesthetic, then grease up some cotton about the size of a tampon and jam it up his nose till it stopped, tape it shut and call it good. He now wanted to race. This crazy fool who couldn’t breath out of his nose, still doped up on drugs, having dizzy spells from the pint of blood he had lost, and twice the age of any of us, wanted to go put in a lap now. Ok, if you think you can do it? I handed off to him and wished him good luck; his first lap was at dusk. Probably the worst lap of the race because you eyes have to adjust to so many different light levels, compounded by the fact that he had never ridden the course, we were just praying he would survive and not come back with the medics. The dude comes back in with a 47 minute lap time equaling if not beating some of our fastest laps, who is he superman?!?
Now that we are officially a 5 man team and it will count if we win, its time to start winning. Each one of us is trying to one up the other guy and I really think it’s starting to hurt us. Every time we gain a couple minutes we loose twice as much to a mechanical. I’m tired of Colin’s flats so it’s time to introduce him to the world of tubeless tires, we take him over to Tall Paul and the Mavic boys and they round him up a set of super nice X Max tubeless. I still don’t know how he did it but he manages to blow the fucking tire right of the rim! No holes, no punctures, no pinch flats, on a flat section of trail he blows one whole bead off the rim! WTF?!? Is the dark angel of death looming over our team for a reason? We are now in 3rd, I think the other teams are starting to capitalize on our mechanicals.
Oh, it’s not over yet boys and girls. I go out on my first night lap, and manage to crash trying to push it in the rocks on the long loop. No big deal, but there is nothing like a little road rash to wake you up. About 2-3am we are starting to move our way back up the board, I caught second place due to a light problem. Of course Colin goes out the next lap and his light dies. Lap after that Dejay has a rock come off his rear tire and snap one of his seat rails. Some where around dawn we move our way back into 1st and start having clean, fast laps. Its funny, the only one who’s had no issues, is Keith, this guy is a fucking machine!
With about 2hrs to go we finally had our original lead back to about 25min, a little bit of a comfort zone but not much knowing our luck thus far. Now the competition began, it was time to see who could pull the fastest lap. Dejay started it, when he switched over to his geared bike and pulled down a 42. Then it was Jason’s turn and he turned it up a notch with a 41. Keith wanted to join in on the fun and threw down a 45, impressive to say the least and equal to my last lap time.
Then it was Colin, Our last rider. With 15min before noon we didn’t need to send anyone out because of a half hour lead. But why just sit around and drink and win by a couple minutes when you have the chance to really earn it. Maybe it was just because he finally rode off the mechanical curse, maybe he had something to prove, maybe it was just for bragging rights, and maybe he just wanted the free wheel set. Whatever it was Colin went out and pulled an amazing 40min lap out of his ass, good enough for the fastest lap time of the entire race and a free Mavic wheel set. That’s it, 30 bone jarring laps in 24hrs 29min.
One of the most painful, stressful, and competitive 24hr event’s I’ve ever done. I can’t wait for the chance to do it all over again. Thanks go out to all my teammates, our support crew, and especially Keith Bontrager for making it all possible
Until next time, ride fast and take chances…
If you take nothing else away from this thing, take Kyle’s feel for racing and life in general. He was a star.
Vets and Masters
Since then I’ve raced more and more every year. I started racing around 40, and after a few years I was riding on some Vets teams (A brief UK v US language lesson - we call a racer over 35 a vet – that’s nothing compared to the one I learned about suspenders a while back). The Vets racing category here is about the same as it is over there with the top riders always very close to the front of the race overall. These teams only had 4 riders instead of 5, and the competition was tough, so the races added new demands to the event, and to the suffering. Shorter recovery times matter. We never won, but we got close to the podium a few times, and I started to get a taste for it, so I started racing on age group teams whenever I could.
Luckily (in a very limited sense of that word) I was soon to turn 45, which is when you are able to race in the Master’s category here (again, there are some differences between the US and the UK in the naming convention). That changed everything. The combination of racing for 5 years and the new age group designation meant that getting close to the front of the category was going to be realistic. I was able to stand on the podium for the first time, and in time it got to be a habit.
You might think that was because I moved into a category for the elderly, and there is certainly some truth to that. But it is not that simple. The teams I raced with were consistently in the top 20% of the race overall, and were as high as second place once. The competition in the masters and vets categories is very tough because the riders are experienced and don’t make as many stupid mistakes. If there is an experienced team breathing down your neck, they will be there every lap until you get away from them, If you make a mistake they will pass you. That sort of pressure can really make a race hurt. There are no easy laps.
With all the racing I was doing and the fitness that came from that my best times were dropping at every race too. The courses for the bigger races don’t change very often here so the comparisons are valid, more or less. I even managed to get the fastest lap in the category once, and came close a few other times. I wasn’t the fastest, and never will be. But I felt like I was racing, and I was.
The Back of the Net
On the last topic, it gets better. I set up two teams for the 24 hour race in Moab last year. This is the big one here in the states and I set up two teams because I know too many folks after all these races. A friend of mine, Bruce Muhlfeld, was racing on one of them. He did something I have never seen before – he rode the fastest lap of the race on his last lap. He was not only the fastest master racer; he was the fastest racer in any category, the fastest in the whole damn race. There were pros there. He beat them. Bruce is a unique racer and still races as a pro al ot of the time. Not many 50 year olds can push as hard on the pedals consistently as he can (nor can many 25 year olds for that matter). It was a huge pleasure to see him do it.
While my story hints at the notion that age is no excuse, his proves it once and for all. Age is no excuse.
Your Homework – A Reading List
We live in a strange time. That’s not a unique thing to say, it’s been true at other times, all times probably (Adam and Eve no doubt mentioned some strangeness). But it is certainly true now.
The strangeness – people looking back on us hundreds of years from now are going to see how much effort we put into “improving” the way we live – and how that effort screwed things up. Some of the things that have been done to improve our lives (in the vague way that marketing uses the term) are sneakily counterproductive. Hopefully they will be doing much better by then.
There are a lot of ways this problem shows but a few are directly connected to this rant.
There are major problems with people that are obese – almost certainly caused in part by the way we eat and what we eat, helped along by the sedentary lives we modern westerners can live.
We’ve gone out our collective, industrial ways to make sure no one has to know anything about food or food preparation to survive. Just buy the package, pop it in the oven (or not) and enjoy.
There are a lot of people who would benefit from eating real food (real food - fresh or prepared from fresh ingredients, not out of a package) in the proper portions (the problems with consuming supersized portions needs no comment, right?). Have you noticed that you could take 90% of the items off the shelves of a supersized American style supermarket and end up with about the right mix of items to sustain a human properly, even elegantly?
Michael Pollen summarized it in a New York Times article he wrote a while back – “Eat food, not too much, mostly leaves.” He also wrote a book called the Ominvore’s Dillema. Read it. Read it right after you finish this.
Exercise is the other missing ingredient in this energy equation. For generations we’ve worked hard to eliminate labor from our lives, and I don’t question those motives for the most part. We don’t have to chase down prey or forage in the woods for dinner (though these are still a great way to get exercise!). But we, as animals, don’t do well without it, physically or mentally. We evolved in a way that makes us depend on it in fact.
So, if we don’t do manual work for a living, we need to add it back into our lives in our recreation – cycling running, or hiking, or walking, ways that make our bodies move. Riding a bike is a nearly perfect means for that, and not just as sport. Ride to the shops, ride to work, ride everywhere you can. It works. That’s another of Mike Stroud’s points in his book by the way. You can get very fit without a lot of time on your bike, or add to the fitness you get when you are riding. Take advantage of the opportunities you have in your daily lives to exercise. Walk up stairs. Commute to work.
An early start on that is the best way to make it stick for life too. Teach your kids to ride safely, everywhere, and set an example for them. Bring them and their bikes out to the race. Let them see it up close. If they want to race when they are old enough, race with them.
The way these connect with 24 Hour racing should be obvious. When you are racing you think about the things you eat and the way you exercise. I don’t mean thinking about what you eat in the diet to lose weight approach (though you might do a bit of that occasionally). You won’t need to diet rigorously when you are riding a lot. Ride to eat, eat to ride. Pollen has a lot to say about what to eat too.
Exercise takes care of itself, especially when you are working towards a goal. Which brings back goals. There’s the connection.
We also live at a time when aging doesn’t seem to matter as much to our athletic abilities. Few of my parents generation (Recall my age – it is a historically significant time interval) no one over 35 did anything that required significant physical exertion. And they paid the price; they were feeble in the last years of their lives and they died young. There are a lot of very strong men and women who are getting older and not slowing down much. If you doubt that, race in the 3 peaks Cyclocross up in Yorkshire – you’ll see.
I am not sure about the specifics of why this is happening but a list of the likely explanations is not hard to come up with. It’s a remarkable contradiction to the first problem I noted. Some people seem to get it all wrong, and some seem to get it absolutely right. I think it’s worth it to try to get it right.
Andrew Weil M.D. said this about life and about aging: “The idea is to squeeze the time of disability and discomfort at the end of life into a period that is as short as possible, you want to live long and well and then have a rapid drop off at the end”. He elaborates on how to do that in his book ”Healthy Aging” and a lot of it is fairly predictable (some is not though, and it is worth a read too). Apply all that to racing. Take care of yourself and keep at it.
By now I hope you are motivated to race, or are at least running out of excuses. If not, I’ll keep chipping away… |
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