What is Fear? As I struggled up the steeper slopes of today’s ride I was having a good hard think about it. Whereas shagged muscles just hurt fear can manifest in many ways. I guess there are many fears but my biggest one climbing isn't the fear of a rock slide or being cleaned up by a car (that does enter my mind at times I will say), but rather the fear of failing. For me on the steeper sections when my heart rate goes nuts I find my mind saying ‘stop you’re about to pop’ over and over, I guess it's a survival mechanism of the primitive part of the brain. Now I’m no guru at keeping these thoughts from appearing, but I have found that repeated use of the F word out loud does go in some way to keeping them at bay.
I have found that if I can control my heart rate via my pace enough to keep it below 200 it makes the climb a little better. This does have a downside of course that being you are on the climb longer, which of course means different demons come in to play. Climbing is a whole new ball game I’m finding.
Anyway I didn’t come down here to climb mountains, but they are everywhere we seem to go so why not I thought.
Mt Buffalo is about 1300 meters up I think and about 21 k’s long, so roughly double most of the rides I have ridden so far. Today I climbed for more than an hour in preparation for Buffalo and while I had moments of doubt when looking at a road that just kept going up and up, it has gone someway to making me think I’m in with a chance if I ride it the right way.
In about 30 hours from now I guess I’ll know :)
I have found that if I can control my heart rate via my pace enough to keep it below 200 it makes the climb a little better. This does have a downside of course that being you are on the climb longer, which of course means different demons come in to play. Climbing is a whole new ball game I’m finding.
Anyway I didn’t come down here to climb mountains, but they are everywhere we seem to go so why not I thought.
Mt Buffalo is about 1300 meters up I think and about 21 k’s long, so roughly double most of the rides I have ridden so far. Today I climbed for more than an hour in preparation for Buffalo and while I had moments of doubt when looking at a road that just kept going up and up, it has gone someway to making me think I’m in with a chance if I ride it the right way.
In about 30 hours from now I guess I’ll know :)
2 comments:
there's no shame in walking - oh sorry i forgot your not a "try athlete" any more so there would be shame in walking !!!
enjoy
It would kill me to walk, it would be a FAIL. I will be taking no prisoners.
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