Anyone who races or does ultra distances wants to be on form. There’s nothing better than riding your bike like the wind at the opportune moment: the last 200 meters of a criterium, up the 7-mile climb with 7% average gradient, on the back half of a double or regular century. Feeling fatigue or “no legs” on a big day disappoints. All the training, data analysis and nutrition is for naught. The massages, too, from professional hands or self-administered. The compression socks that helped replenish tired blood with oxygen the night before suddenly seem useless.
But those days are rare. We’re smarter. We train the right way. On race or ride day, the toning creme rubbed into our quadriceps, hamstrings and calves readies them for a huge effort, not masks soreness and pain. Elevating. Stretching. Preparing. We want it to work. And we work on it. Yes, we’re on form. This is how it should be. Navigating the razor’s edge between prepared and physically fried is the most difficult part of cycling. The more the body is stressed and tested, the more susceptible it becomes to sickness. Riding when hurt can expose you to more injury. Rest days aren’t for slackers. No, they’re equal in importance to the hardest training days, if not more so. We’ve learned this through experience. Through bonking. Through gasping for air and losing wheels. Through dragging ourselves over a mountain with nothing more than a suitcase of courage. It’s fascinating and human. It’s sport. Consider: In a peculiar way, cyclists are a cross between gym weightlifters who religiously pump iron, and slightly built marathon runners who get something out of every movement forward. Cyclists balance strength for power and aerobic capacity for endurance to go places. We’re engines. Engines atop on works of beauty made of steel, titanium, carbon fiber or aluminum. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially when we’re on form.
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