I was posed with this question yesterday on my easy ride. Generally I would consider myself "moderately" competitive, however I have noticed that as my skill level increases with training my competitive streak seems to be increasing.
Yesterday training dictated it was to be an EASY ride....basically my coach threatened that he better not see ANY 200+ watt efforts on my Power Tap file. Which translated means.....DAMM IT SAM DO IT FOR ONCE! So away I went on my "easy" excursion. Talk about having to shift a lot...YIKES. Getting out of my immediate area takes a little bit and you have to climb a few hills on the way so my legs were spinning like crazy to the point of having to WORK at not bouncing BUT my watts were lower than 200, so that was good. (I swear i was really trying)
As I meandered up this one street I hear some ppl yelling and soon come to realize its my name they're yelling. Oh great....fans. (JOKING) It was actually just some friends out riding whom caught up with me faster than I would have liked. One of the guys Abie(pronounced Abby..short 4 Abner & yes his parents hated him OBVIOUSLY hee hee )was along with the group & since I had spoken to him earlier he knew I was pretty much spinning BUT it didn't deter him from heckling me. Sorta like a lion hunting down weaker prey. (I'm faster than him on just about any day generally) "Whats up Sammy..are you having a bad day?" "Feeling slow?" "Those cracked ribs really are affecting your speed!" "Guess you'll have to swim even faster now!" To which I replied.....Shut up Abigail. Shut up Abigail??? Is that the best I had? Well I guess it was the only thing I could come up with while I was grinding my teeth together as they rode past me.
To make matters worse one of the riders was this "I'm so cool, I have a cool bike, I'm the best rider in the whole wide world", "worship me" types. Whenever we end up riding even remotely close to each each other, it turns into a pissing match because I CAN'T STAND the self important, snobby prick! ( oops, was that my outside voice?) Don't get me wrong he's a good cyclist but he is also the first to jump on the "triathletes can't cycle, they don't know what they're doing and they aren't as good as the rest of us" bandwagon. WHICH I HATE! Can't we all just get along and learn/improve from each others experineces/skills. NOPE apparently not because since I'm a triathlete I am also covered in scales and barely walk upright. LOLOL hey wait...scales....that means maybe a fish. SCOOORRRREEEEEE!!!!!!
As the group passes...hi's , hello's etc are exchanged after Abigails remarks...and then I get a nice huge sneer from "elite boy". AARRRGGGGGHHHH.....they slowly pull away.... my brain fires into the "Hell no they're not going to drop me" and I start to shift gears to dig in a GO. Reaching to shift I hear the words"NO 200+ efforts echo thru my head! DAMMMMMM!!!!!! $*^&*@^^$&@#^....next come a few evil thoughts of my coach skip across my brain pan but then I immediately realize I have to learn to CONTROL myself. Can't chase every rabbit right? After grinding down my teeth for a few mins I regained mental control and continued on. ( I suspect the fact that I the group turned off elsewhere helped also..out of sight out of mind. :P)
What I took from ride...Well one that I can have impulse control when racing and then I realized is that I am indeed getting even more competitive!
Yesterday training dictated it was to be an EASY ride....basically my coach threatened that he better not see ANY 200+ watt efforts on my Power Tap file. Which translated means.....DAMM IT SAM DO IT FOR ONCE! So away I went on my "easy" excursion. Talk about having to shift a lot...YIKES. Getting out of my immediate area takes a little bit and you have to climb a few hills on the way so my legs were spinning like crazy to the point of having to WORK at not bouncing BUT my watts were lower than 200, so that was good. (I swear i was really trying)
As I meandered up this one street I hear some ppl yelling and soon come to realize its my name they're yelling. Oh great....fans. (JOKING) It was actually just some friends out riding whom caught up with me faster than I would have liked. One of the guys Abie(pronounced Abby..short 4 Abner & yes his parents hated him OBVIOUSLY hee hee )was along with the group & since I had spoken to him earlier he knew I was pretty much spinning BUT it didn't deter him from heckling me. Sorta like a lion hunting down weaker prey. (I'm faster than him on just about any day generally) "Whats up Sammy..are you having a bad day?" "Feeling slow?" "Those cracked ribs really are affecting your speed!" "Guess you'll have to swim even faster now!" To which I replied.....Shut up Abigail. Shut up Abigail??? Is that the best I had? Well I guess it was the only thing I could come up with while I was grinding my teeth together as they rode past me.
To make matters worse one of the riders was this "I'm so cool, I have a cool bike, I'm the best rider in the whole wide world", "worship me" types. Whenever we end up riding even remotely close to each each other, it turns into a pissing match because I CAN'T STAND the self important, snobby prick! ( oops, was that my outside voice?) Don't get me wrong he's a good cyclist but he is also the first to jump on the "triathletes can't cycle, they don't know what they're doing and they aren't as good as the rest of us" bandwagon. WHICH I HATE! Can't we all just get along and learn/improve from each others experineces/skills. NOPE apparently not because since I'm a triathlete I am also covered in scales and barely walk upright. LOLOL hey wait...scales....that means maybe a fish. SCOOORRRREEEEEE!!!!!!
As the group passes...hi's , hello's etc are exchanged after Abigails remarks...and then I get a nice huge sneer from "elite boy". AARRRGGGGGHHHH.....they slowly pull away.... my brain fires into the "Hell no they're not going to drop me" and I start to shift gears to dig in a GO. Reaching to shift I hear the words"NO 200+ efforts echo thru my head! DAMMMMMM!!!!!! $*^&*@^^$&@#^....next come a few evil thoughts of my coach skip across my brain pan but then I immediately realize I have to learn to CONTROL myself. Can't chase every rabbit right? After grinding down my teeth for a few mins I regained mental control and continued on. ( I suspect the fact that I the group turned off elsewhere helped also..out of sight out of mind. :P)
What I took from ride...Well one that I can have impulse control when racing and then I realized is that I am indeed getting even more competitive!
1 comments:
Way to have the self-control. That can be hard! I am competitive, but not so much in training. Glad you seem to be healing up well! Save the great performances for race day! :-)
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