Two Wheel Blogs

There has been a lot of retrospecting here lately, and a lot of "priority" discussion. I can not add much because this year I have really been lucky. In past years I had a lot of trouble balancing everything with cycling. This year has had difficult moments but I have managed to ride really well (probably because of those moments) in spite of the fact that I have done very little in the way of conventional training/planning.

While it sounds like a bit of a joke to suggest that we set goals low so that we can reach them, there is some truth in there (at least to the extent that it is silly to set goals too high). I suppose I have even offered up some advice to friends in this regard lately. Now I am not some sort of self-help speaker, but what I have used in this past year has helped me 10-fold...and it is two simple questions:

1. What is the most important thing in life?
2. What is the most important thing in cycling?

Here in web-space, many people would answer with a very emphatic one word answer that serves for both questions, "Winning".

However, in my life the first answer is complex and you would have to get into the 3rd or 4th paragraph before you even see the word "cycling". Chances are you and I are somewhat similar in this regard, and if not--why are you reading my blog instead of training!

The second question is probably a lot simpler for most. I submit that most of us got into cycling because it is fun and we may even state that when asked, yet we allow ourselves to be pressured out of the fun circle and so deep into the training/mileage/work area that we end up burnt out at some point.

I submit that if you are doing things right you will never get burned out. For me, I am more successful if I use cycling to reduce stress instead of allowing it to cause stress. This works both ways too. When I get stressed out from my real life, I get on the bike and hit it that much harder.

Perhaps that is why my year on the bike has gone so well (lots of life stress)?