Diaries of an Aspiring Ultra-Distance Cyclist: Importance of Rest
I write this blog post in frustration, to vent my thoughts before starting my racing season with the Dales Divide next weekend. I’ve lost a lot of time to little niggly setbacks over the last few weeks. I wanted to talk about the importance of rest with respect to all the other tasks that need doing ‘off-bike’ to enable success ultra-distance endurance undertakings.
A couple of weeks back I took a Thursday afternoon of work to make the most of the sun & some me time, before a busy weekend. I was hammering out hill reps on a tricky climb in the Dales – long, rocky & really quite technical in places. Not one I used to be able to clear every time. I’d done 5 reps of this climb and was determined to get one last ‘perfect’ run – sometimes it can feel like sheer power drags me over an obstacle when my wheels are spinning. To me that’s not really clearing it; there’s a better way that would guarantee results every time.
I was looking too far ahead at this one bit that I considered most difficult, focussing on the line choice I’d visualised – tunnel vision – neglecting what was right in front of me. I missed a rock. It was an easy step up to make, but it caught my front wheel before I reacted, knocking it to the left. I didn’t panic, I held on for a second thinking id take a different line. As I went to put the power down, my back wheel spun out and I lost traction – wresting with the front end to lift it up and over, I couldn’t generate any forward momentum. Because I was fully committed & clipped in, I took a tumble, very ungraciously hitting the deck – knee first, bike going over my head and pedals pinging loose. I wasn’t even concerned about my knee, more in disbelief of watching my new bike bouncing down the rocky climb, unable to pick myself up due to the pain of the impact. A really stupid and simple mistake, one that I’m now dealing with consequence of.
It was the same knee I tore a tendon in last year. I couldn’t risk riding on it, so I took the decision considering the importance of rest, that 3 days off is better than 3 weeks off. The frustration stems mainly from the fact that I felt my form was really building. Its been the same story for the weeks since. As soon as I get over one obstacle, its straight into another; bouts of illness have taken me out on two separate occasions, now saddle sores. Whilst I haven’t lost big chunks of time, I’ve lost consistency & that’s what really gets under my skin.
Despite feeling like I’m not doing enough, when I look at my training data I’m still getting 18 hours and around 350-400km in per week. I shouldn’t moan at that. Yet at a time of year when I was really looking to increase my training volume in lieu of the race season opening, I cant help but feel I’m not doing the work I need to be doing.
As I mentioned in other blog posts, there is a lot more to ultra-distance than just being fast on a bike. When I look at what I have achieved in that downtime in terms of general race prep, I’ve got logistics sorted for 5 out 6 races this season. Strategy, nutrition & kit list planned for my first race of the season. Bike positions have been tweaked with professional advice. I’ve done the majority of tasks I needed to in terms of ‘off-bike’ prep for these events. As frustrated as I am about time on the bike and the importance of rest, these ‘off-bike’ preparations are what will help me overall – Overall average speed is more important than moving average speed. Like I said in the previous post, setbacks are inevitable – how we deal with setbacks is what matters, so still being able to achieve something off bike is a win.
The first few weeks through January & February started this year off really well, I think more a continuation of the consistency I was implementing before Christmas. My training was starting to show results, I was feeling stronger on the bike – getting into those moments were spinning the pedals for hours on end just felt easy & effortless. I was also doing really well with finding balance, accommodating everything that I needed to in terms professional, social & training life balance. Yet one tiny mistake is all it can take to unravel it.
This year’s plans will see me doing a lot more off road riding & I’m very much embracing this new challenge. I like my road bike for the simple reason that its logistically easy; I can ride from my front door. That said, riding off road requires a technical ability as well as just strong riding. With road cycling it’s very easy to produced measured efforts when it comes to hill climbing – whereas mountain biking is more ‘do what it takes to get up the climb’ to clear the technical sections, not just the gradient. It feels like a new challenge; road biking is how fast can I get up this hill & how little fatigue will it impart, whereas on the mountain bike the question is simply can I get up it or not. Line choice, pedal bashing & bike handling skills all come into play, you cant just simply maintain cadence and power up a 15% boulder garden. I’m one of those wierdos that actually loves the challenge of an XC climb – it feels like a new challenge every time, one where you can’t guarantee the result. It frustrates the hell out of me, when I get 75% up a climb, legs on fire & I loose traction or cant clear an obstacle. But I’m learning & improving every time. I figure practice until you cant get it wrong – and there’s plenty of them to go at in the Dales!
Ultra-distance endurance training is not all crazy mile munching & excessive hill climbing. Sure, you do need to do a few big rides, but this idea that we’re all machines who are hard as nails and can withstand any pain threshold is nonsense. We’re human. Yes, we have a tolerance of discomfort, that’s a vital part of success in a race. But there’s a line, and there’s absolutely no point in forcing yourself through something when you don’t absolutely need to.
Doing nothing will not negatively impact my fitness. Obviously doing nothing on multiple consecutive days will, but one or two inactive days a week will absolutely not adversely impact my fitness. Whilst personally I do prefer to keep momentum going, if training on a given day adds to an already high bodily stress – resulting in less sleep, bad eating habits etc. it’s not an overall positive improvement. The importance of rest cannot be understated. (Get this into your head Callum!)
That said, I hate rest days. Riding my bike is very much a hobby & lifestyle thing – I often forget this throughout the process of training. I get very consumed by a training plan; must do this session with X intervals at a certain duration. I know what recovery I’ll need and when I can go again. Yet as soon as the weather looks decent outside, I’ll be straight out and the training plan goes out the window. Whilst that’s great for mental well-being & just enjoying riding my bike, it causes havoc with my training schedule. Rest days are planned, so when I throw the training plan out the window, I forget about rest until it catches up with me – then consistency falls over. It’s a hard cycle to manage, but as I’m understanding my body a little more it’s becoming easier to spot patterns.
I have to learn things for myself, often the hard way – in this case I’m understanding the importance of rest; that rest is good & healthy. But its also the hardest part of training & requires the most discipline. Knowing when your body is right, telling you to rest vs when you’re just being lazy is crucial. Sure, there are days when you do have to really force it – Learning to understand the difference between ‘no I don’t want to train, but yes I physically can’ and ‘yes I do want to train, but no I physically shouldn’t’ has been a learning curve for me.
One of the key learnings for me last year was around knowing my body & my limits. Whilst that was more around race scenarios, I think its equally important in training too. In my last blog I talked about positive return on investment in training. The importance of rest is a massively understated element of training, without rest there is no time for repair and improvement to settle in. However there is a balance; too little and you wear yourself out, too much and you don’t improve.
Time off is healthy – it resets the brain, lets all the niggles come out & all the improvements bed in. Time off is never a bad thing, its just a little disruptive to normal routine. I caught a bit of podcast the other day which talked about cost of not doing something with respect to investment, personal improvement etc. a cost which is often overlooked when making a decision – basically stating we focus so much on the pros and cons of doing something that we neglect the impact of not doing it. It got me thinking about it with a different slant, with respect to training and the importance of rest. So here I am having had a few niggles & other setbacks, trying to listen to my body and understand what the best thing to do is. If I train, great, more volume – but I could worsen it. Whereas if I don’t train, I guarantee I don’t worsen it. 3 days off is better than 3 weeks off. 3 missed sessions isn’t going to define my year; but 3 weeks missed as a result of worsening a nothing injury is. The cost of not doing training is therefore insignificant. So whilst I am always disappointed to loose time on the bike, time invested in off-bike ultra-distance tasks is never time wasted. I write this whilst enjoying a coffee in the garden, being present & listening to the bird song – but I think I’d still rather be riding!
