Occasionally, when we push ourselves hard during a workout, we hit a wall. I don’t mean collapsing, I just mean stopping.
Sometimes it happens without us noticing. We just find ourselves standing still, panting, hands on hips instead of running. Sometimes we can push through and find some strength to continue when we’d usually stop. We might chalk this up to some new mental mindset or technique, but a lot of the times we don’t know what worked.
In all these situations, the person giving up is the same person we’re all used to being. You. The person who tends to think the same thoughts. The person with your genetics. Your habitual consciousness.
I know myself pretty well at this point. If I leave the situation in the hands of my typical self, I know what’s going to happen. When I’m swimming laps, I might think, “OK, I have one more lap in me.” And that’s what will happen.
But in that particular moment, when we just need to run for a few more minutes or lift that weight one more time, do we have to be that same old person? Is that habitual frame of mind the best one for the job?
When we ask that question, another follows. Who might it be more helpful to be?
Maybe we need to briefly become someone or something else, or briefly stop being ourselves. This might happen spontaneously. Like, you’re in the pool and for a minute, your leaden legs filled with lactic acid start to slash through the water like a tiger shark’s tail.
To make this sort of thing to happen, we need to find ways to give up control and allow it to happen. Then, and only then, do we open up to the possibility of something different happening.
You start questioning yourself. Why am I here? What am I doing this for? When all you need to do is ride your bike to the finish line, asking “what’s the point?”, is not very helpful.It’s the type of question that invariably creates more questions. Do I even like this? Why do I do this to myself? Who do I think I am? What am I getting out of this?
It was dramatic (I’ve lost the love, I’m quitting.) It was proud and sought validation (I’ve done a lot of training, but it wasn’t enough). It was dismissive (Things change. I’m interested in different things now. Cycling is not for me)
When we run low on water or nutrition, our mind goes crazy. I was bonking, dehydrated and out of carbs. I hadn’t planned enough, paced enough or trained enough, and paying the price.
No one told me to grit my teeth. Although it gives me a certain kind of energy, it doesn’t feel very pleasant. And if I’m honest, it rarely helps with whatever I’m trying to do. It doesn’t make me smarter, faster, funnier, kinder.
Even in my dreams I was questioned, prodded and mocked by satisfied race finishers who demanded I take responsibility for my result.
Once the psychic dust had settled, the diagnosis was blindingly obvious. I hadn’t prepared enough.
A year later, I was back and ready to ride again. My determination was still there to finish the job.
But this time, I had a plan. I mean, I literally had a training plan, a single PDF page which told me very simply what to do and when to do it. On Monday I rested. On Tuesday, I rode my bike.
I had one rule. Stick to the plan as best as you possibly can.
As the race loomed closer in my calendar, I noticed how much I resisted following a structured plan that was almost guaranteed to help me.
I started to resent ‘grinding‘ through it day by day and wanted to invent my own approach. I hated to defer to a ‘stupid’ ‘rigid’ instructions and wanted to ride with vengeance, ‘destroying’ my previous time.
Famed San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh calls these distracting ego-traps ‘faulty reasons’. It’s when “your logic is skewed by emotions, pride or arrogance.”1
In other words, when your ego gets in the way and tries to run the show.
Like what happened last year to me.
He noticed early in his career that he consistently got into trouble when he was “trying to prove you’re right and trying to prove someone else is wrong. Of course, they amount to the same thing and often lead to the same place: defeat.”2
Outside of the football field, Bill points to Ernest Shackleton as an example of the ego trying to “force a plan past the point of reality.”3 Before Shackleton set off on his mission to cross Antartica by foot, whalers told him that the Weddell sea was unusually packed with ice that season and advised waiting. Sticking to his plan turned into an epic disaster.
On race day, I rode with a clear head, fresh legs and surprising ease. My boring plan and preparation freed a huge amount of bandwidth to enjoy the car-free roads, nature, meet strangers and help teammates.
I reigned in all point proving, theatrics or anything else stupid.
My ego suffered, but I finished the race.
It’s not a surprise that decent planning and preparation helped. Of course it did!
But sticking to the plan rather than the tempting demands of the ego, meant that even if I had failed, I would have failed for the right reasons.
January 27, 2025 @ 10:31am – Mt. Donna Buang, Australia
Do you know the difference between struggling and suffering?
A hot day on a bike might show you the difference. One moment you’re quietly complaining to yourself about the dwindling water in your bidon and the next moment you’re a martyr.
Historically, a martyr was someone who would volunteer to die rather than renounce their religion. They chose to take a bullet for a belief.
Martyrs don’t take the easy way out:
Instead of asking for help, they grit their teeth in isolation.
Instead of trouble shooting they resigns themselves to endless frustration.
Instead of easing up they doubling down, as if suffering is a good thing.
On a long gravel bike ride with far and few stops for refueling, I caught myself in this martyr frame of mind. I’d been there hundreds of times before without much recognition.
When our group finally pulled up at a 7-11, passive aggression, bitterness and resentment had almost entirely consumed me.
I rushed past my friends to the fridge, burning with righteousness. But before I cracked open my drink, I managed to catch myself.
I asked myself a simple question. This question stops the martyr in its tracks.
What do I need right now?
The false-selflessness, the white knuckling, the relentlessness, the self-destruction all came crashing to a halt.
What do I need?
What do I need? I need to sit down for a few minutes and cool down. That’s it. That’s all. There’s no point to prove. No badge of honor. I simply need to sit down.
I slowly sip my drink and gently tune back into a conversation about the fires in L.A. I finish my drink. My heart rate steadies.
What do I need?
I needed that.
Being a bit of a martyr can fuel us because there’s always someone or something to rail against. It can stroke our ego and make us feel falsely superior and falsely selfless, because the ego is always right.
Martyrdom feels powerful, but problem-solving actually is.
When we let the martyr go and ask ourselves what we need, we come back to neutral reality. We can gain focus on the actual problem to solve. And when we do that, we open ourselves to real, simple solutions. A purple gatorade. Borrowing sunscreen from a friend. A detour. A conversation.
We all have hills to die on. Martyrdom is likely not completely unavoidable for some us (more stubborn) folks. But life is too short to rip ourselves to shreds over a belief.
So next time you find yourself dragging yourself into a personal war,
Normal people sign up for a race for a particular reason, train and prepare and then do their best effort on the day.
I don’t do that.
For some strange reason I avoid research, training plans, coaches. I do my own thing. Instead of calmly and happily sticking to a plan, I grit my teeth and take on an attitude that the world is against me. Sometimes I summon the energy to take on tough physical challenges that raise the eyebrows of others, but don’t really help me get ready.
When I hear about my friends clocking miles on their trainer, I roll my eyes, generally resentful of their progress.
And if I don’t perform like I hoped I would, I heap the blame back on myself. I wasn’t disciplined enough. Not motivated enough. I throw around ultimatums like “I’ll quit cycling forever.”
And this belief is what likely messes with my training, and perhaps every other aspect of my life.
I believe everything has to be hard.
Or put another way…
I believe I have to grit my teeth in order to get to a good result.
I believe that if something is hard, unpleasant and requires a lot of grit teeth, it must be good, or the right thing to do.
I have to admit, I feel morally superior when I grit my teeth.
And I believe if I grit my teeth hard enough, I can control the outcome.
Strange isn’t it.
No one told me to grit my teeth.
Although it gives me a certain kind of energy, it doesn’t feel very pleasant.
And if I’m honest, it rarely helps with whatever I’m trying to do.
It doesn’t make me smarter, faster, funnier, kinder.
It just makes me want grit my teeth more.
Last year when I was bonking, it suddenly became clear that the tooth grinding wasn’t moving my bike forward. It’s a reaction that I’ve told myself is important, rather than a causative force.
I have a theory that perfectionists are afflicted by this ‘tooth grinding’ disease more so than others. Most people just don’t care that much about being good or perfect. They’re too busy having fun.
The harsh reality for perfectionists is that no one is perfect. No one can make anything perfect. There’s no points handed out the more you suffer, or feel hard done by.
The best one can do is to acknowledge the straining attitude, and if you can bear it – to laugh.
December 29, 2023 @ 11:41am – Dongchang Village, Taiwan
A selection of notes, quotes, ideas and musings from the month of March 2024.
Gratitude is a balm for bitterness.
Complaining
Trying not to complain
Feeling proud you’re not complaining
Losing interest in the idea of not complaining
We can’t just do what we want… that’s just juvenile. But we probably have many more options open at any moment than we think. – Robert Moss
A dream: I’m in conversation with an energetic, retired businessman. He encourages me to act my age. He says, you don’t get it, soon you’ll be my age and you’ll wish you took advantage of what you have. The next day, I realize this man was a tennis player at my club. He’s nearly twice my age but often runs me off the court.
98% of the time when I talk about cycling, people are like “you do what? The other 2% of the time I feel like a complete amateur.
A DNF pulls the rug out from under your ego. When you’re improving and getting good results, you hardly notice. But when you’re bonking and getting passed, suddenly you start questioning yourself. Why am I here? What am I doing this for? You kick up a big fuss because things aren’t going your way. This can be a healthy antidote to the inflation of a string of PB’s.
When we are little and we don’t get what we want we scream and cry. When we are adults, we scream and cry in our heads. When we finally get what we wanted, suddenly that voice goes very quiet. Our mind can be like a child who has been very rude, but suddenly gets the ice cream they want, and is now acting like there was never any problem.
“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” – Carl Jung
The death spiral of bonking:
Come on legs, move.
Denial. I’m not going to bonk.
Come on legs, move.
Trying to fix the issue. Water. Holding my legs differently. Concentration games.
Finally giving up the games and accepting whatever is happening
Come on legs, move.
Repeat
Am I a cyclist? Is that part of my identity important? Maybe what’s important is not that you are or aren’t a cyclist. It’s more important to recognize that it’s a concept. It’s a bit of clothing that can be put on or taken off if you like. There is no forcing. There is no obligation.
Nothing against alcohol, but I feel physically better after cycling 170km and getting heatstroke than a weekend of drinking
Flossing is about getting food out of our teeth. Next time you floss, think about flossing out three meals. As you floss, remember what breakfast, lunch and dinner were and get them out of your teeth.
Daniel Goleman describes anger as a destructive emption. No matter how skilled and self-aware you are, it’s always going to be dangerous to deal with anger – it’s caustic. For some people, dealing with anger is like a toddler playing with a gun. Others are more skilled, like a soldier or policeman. Therefore, the more skilled you are, the more responsibility you have to get your anger under control. We would never blame a toddler for mishandling a firearm, but a soldier should know better.
Rather than focus on the subject of work, we should focus on attitude and how we approach work. When we are unhappy at work, we tend to blame the work, the content. In my experience, I’m bringing the same person to work, so if I’m unhappy, no job change will help.
Morang (the name of my street) is an ancient aboriginal word meaning ‘sky’ or ‘cloud’.
Triathlon is an extremely left brained activity. It’s all about timing. Sequencing. Logic. Caution. Optimising. Planning. Scheduling. It doesn’t take any imagination to be good at a triathlon.
An older man is handed a participation medal. He says “no thanks, I’m too old for that stuff.” A younger woman places her participation medal on her three year old son who receives it with pure delight. Maybe that’s the right age for a medal.
It’s easy to scoff at the suggestion to ‘think positive’, as if we can manufacture happiness out of thin air. But how exactly is that different than how we manufacture suffering out of thin air when we worry about the past and the future?
Two major things people get wrong about discipline (paraphrased from C.S Lewis):
People think discipline is about renunciation or abstinence. It’s not. Instead of restricting and cutting things out of your life, think temperance: Going the right length and no further.
There’s many reasons why one might give up meat or stop drinking alcohol. But the mistake we make is to start saying these things are inherently bad, or judging those who do drink beer or eat hamburgers.
Buddha Bike 