Saturday, March 24, 2012
Same old, same old
In each of the four races I've done so far this year, a break got away and I wasn't in it. That is all.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Something isn't right
Well, it was a rest week and I had some days off, but at times I struggled to rest. I would be laying in my bed for 10 hours but only sleep 7-8 hours. My mind was keeping me up. Anyways, come Saturday I was back on the bike doing some z4. I had a delightful ride heading out to St. Johns around the terminal past the airport and did an interval out to Troutdale and then headed back towards the airport and then down to Dave's Killer Bread to stock up on gluten.
Hagg Lake
Then Sunday, it was on to racing. I headed out to Hagg Lake with the help of the awesome Eric and Ellen from my church group. I thought it was going to be about as miserable as last week's Mason Lake, but the weather turned out to be nice and sunny. There were only 13 riders in my field. All was going well, but I could tell there were some monsters in this field who were about to rip things up. On lap 2, Tim attacked on the decent west hill and then Kyle, Jesse and Al all matched the attack and proceeded to put the hurt on. I was trying to bridge but had just nothing on the steeps it seemed. After the sprint hill I tried harder to bridge with the help of my teammate Tyler, but by the time we got to the middle of the dam we gave up and decided to wait for the next 2 chasers.
Eventually we had a little chase peleton of 6 of us going, but I knew it wasn't close to the pace Kyle would be setting. Lap 4 we dropped the Hutch's rider and then it was me who was struggling to keep up with the group on the steeps. Lap 5 I got dropped for good on the sprint hill and pedaled in z2 the rest of the lap. Turns out 2 other cat 3s quit so I was 10th and second to last.
I got dropped, really?
Wow, guess I'm not in Cat 4 anymore. But still, last year I was the one doing the attacks even in Cat 3 but admittedly the breaks I did get in weren't solo breaks. But I could always stay with the peleton, but this week's peleton was quite small.
After talking to my coach about this, I'm thinking that I'm having a self-confidence problem. The problem isn't that I have utterly no self-confidence, it's that I don't have a massive self-confidence. Based on what my coach tells me and what I've seen myself output on the bike before, I know that I should be able to stay with the pack and even get in that break. And looking at my data, I was only at 172 beats per minute heart rate when I got dropped on the final lap - not even in my z5!! It could've been that due to only believing 70% of the way in myself that I was only able to output 70% of the possible power that I can actually output. It could've even been that it wasn't my body that felt like it was shutting down, it could've been that my mind was perceiving a shut-down even though I had room for exertion.
So my diagnosis is that without a strong self-confidence or perhaps faith, challenging situations are going to be much harder to excel in since the mind limits whatever needs to be done to perform at the high level. It seems quite likely to me that especially in a bike race pain can be amplified through a loss of self-confidence. But not only in a bike race, nearly anything where there is effort required low self-confidence can just ruin people. I imagine and can even relate to the homeless people outside who may at times just piss themselves yet do not have the self-confidence that they can stand up and pull themselves out of the literal shit they have created. Or perhaps you can take Arthur Ashe's quote for it as my Mom shared with me:
Nonetheless, I must admit that self-confidence matters quite a bit. In trying to categorize it in the success equation I came up with, I'd say it would fall under the execution parameter. It's possible to have massive self-confidence in say biking at an average speed of 30 mph for 20 miles, but if you don't have the resources (fitness) it's still probably not going to happen. It's rather weird thinking about how the mind works and directs the body to do things, but that is what is going on - it's not like the legs control the mind, they just whine and complain under stress hence Jens Voigt's saying "shutup legs!"
So what to do, or what would Arthur Ashe do?
IVRR, I'm coming for you
Goal: annihilate myself on the hills of Independence Valley. I will not be satisfied with any race performance this weekend unless I hit a heart rate of 192. I know I can do it, I've seen myself hit a heart rate of 196 last year. Aside from that, I think I'll be satisfied if I stay with the pack, but if I'm still with the pack after that last hill, we'll see what happens.
Hagg Lake
Then Sunday, it was on to racing. I headed out to Hagg Lake with the help of the awesome Eric and Ellen from my church group. I thought it was going to be about as miserable as last week's Mason Lake, but the weather turned out to be nice and sunny. There were only 13 riders in my field. All was going well, but I could tell there were some monsters in this field who were about to rip things up. On lap 2, Tim attacked on the decent west hill and then Kyle, Jesse and Al all matched the attack and proceeded to put the hurt on. I was trying to bridge but had just nothing on the steeps it seemed. After the sprint hill I tried harder to bridge with the help of my teammate Tyler, but by the time we got to the middle of the dam we gave up and decided to wait for the next 2 chasers.
Eventually we had a little chase peleton of 6 of us going, but I knew it wasn't close to the pace Kyle would be setting. Lap 4 we dropped the Hutch's rider and then it was me who was struggling to keep up with the group on the steeps. Lap 5 I got dropped for good on the sprint hill and pedaled in z2 the rest of the lap. Turns out 2 other cat 3s quit so I was 10th and second to last.
I got dropped, really?
Wow, guess I'm not in Cat 4 anymore. But still, last year I was the one doing the attacks even in Cat 3 but admittedly the breaks I did get in weren't solo breaks. But I could always stay with the peleton, but this week's peleton was quite small.
After talking to my coach about this, I'm thinking that I'm having a self-confidence problem. The problem isn't that I have utterly no self-confidence, it's that I don't have a massive self-confidence. Based on what my coach tells me and what I've seen myself output on the bike before, I know that I should be able to stay with the pack and even get in that break. And looking at my data, I was only at 172 beats per minute heart rate when I got dropped on the final lap - not even in my z5!! It could've been that due to only believing 70% of the way in myself that I was only able to output 70% of the possible power that I can actually output. It could've even been that it wasn't my body that felt like it was shutting down, it could've been that my mind was perceiving a shut-down even though I had room for exertion.
So my diagnosis is that without a strong self-confidence or perhaps faith, challenging situations are going to be much harder to excel in since the mind limits whatever needs to be done to perform at the high level. It seems quite likely to me that especially in a bike race pain can be amplified through a loss of self-confidence. But not only in a bike race, nearly anything where there is effort required low self-confidence can just ruin people. I imagine and can even relate to the homeless people outside who may at times just piss themselves yet do not have the self-confidence that they can stand up and pull themselves out of the literal shit they have created. Or perhaps you can take Arthur Ashe's quote for it as my Mom shared with me:
The most important factor determining success in athletic competition is often the ability to control mood swings that result from unfavorable changes in the score.I'm perhaps a bit reluctant about this self-confidence thing however, because I'm a firm believer in using numbers, statistical evidence and formulas to make decisions - I will try to rationalize anything in excel if I can. And I further dislike that self-confidence is often times used by people instead of hard evidence in decision making. But often times this self-confidence thing is what people kind of notice and can use as a gauge to estimate someone's ability to deliver on something, and perhaps it is quite a reliable trait that can be used as a gauge for some items.
Nonetheless, I must admit that self-confidence matters quite a bit. In trying to categorize it in the success equation I came up with, I'd say it would fall under the execution parameter. It's possible to have massive self-confidence in say biking at an average speed of 30 mph for 20 miles, but if you don't have the resources (fitness) it's still probably not going to happen. It's rather weird thinking about how the mind works and directs the body to do things, but that is what is going on - it's not like the legs control the mind, they just whine and complain under stress hence Jens Voigt's saying "shutup legs!"
So what to do, or what would Arthur Ashe do?
I knew that I had to do everything possible to keep this avalanche of deadly emotion from starting. One simply must not despair, even for a moment.It's so cheesy, but it's so true about letting bad thoughts entering your mind. When you start believing less in yourself in anything that you do, your mind will be unable to perform at the level you want and in the case of bike racing it won't be able to overcome the whining and complaining of the legs saying "stop, this is haarrddd. wawawawa" and perhaps the mind will give in and give up. Instead, excellence must be pursued.
IVRR, I'm coming for you
Goal: annihilate myself on the hills of Independence Valley. I will not be satisfied with any race performance this weekend unless I hit a heart rate of 192. I know I can do it, I've seen myself hit a heart rate of 196 last year. Aside from that, I think I'll be satisfied if I stay with the pack, but if I'm still with the pack after that last hill, we'll see what happens.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
The Standards Have Been Set Low
Racing! Finally! And probably overdue. After a third week of a build and final week of weightlifting of the season, I went into it tired. And it showed.
Sequim
I have at times struggled logistically getting to races, but I nailed it for this race. I did all bike maintenance stuff the night before and packed everything before going to bed. And even before this, I had made breakfast for the weekend before leaving Portland. Then I got up and was driving by the time I had wanted to start driving. I got to the race 1 hour and 25 minutes early! I set up the bike and kitted up and even tried some relaxation and visualization exercise before the race with time to spare.
Then we started racing. I had had a plan to just watch things basically the first few laps and then try something lap 3. This strategy was going all fine and well until I tried a break on lap 3 and realized that I did not have enough sustained power output available. I was able to get clear fine, but staying away was a big problem. I got caught quickly. I also had a bit of a problem during the race in that my race food was clif bars which were way too clumpy to be effectively eaten and digested at the pace we were going.
On the final lap I found myself at the back of the pack after fumbling around trying to eat my 3rd clif bar. Not good. I was trying to move up a little bit and was really going to get up there after that final riser. Unfortunately, some people decided to crash themselves in front of me which I could not avoid getting caught up in based on my current position. I was able to slow down enough to slow-motion crash-speed, hit a few bodies with the front wheel, began a brief launch up in the air and then landed on who knows who with my neck. I got up, had to take off my helmet because it was now covering my face and then proceeded to assesses the damage. All body parts still intact and not even scraped up, nice. Spin the rear carbon wheel.. it's true! Spin the front carbon wheel, it's also true!!! YESS!!!! Best crash ever!
Although I didn't get a chance to contest the sprint I was relieved that there wasn't any pressure at this point so I happily pedaled my way in z2 and even did my own sprint from 200m. Then it was another logistical whirlwind - chugging chocolate almond milk, getting packed, driving to Oak Table, chugging some more chocolate almond milk, eating an entire apple pancake at Oak Table in about 15 minutes, speeding my way all the way to Winslow with 10 minutes to spare before the 2:55 ferry! This view never gets old:
Ate dinner with my good friend Randy over at Wild Ginger, drove back to Tacoma, watched "No Stings Attached" with my sister and her quirky housemate and getting to bed later than I should at about 11:15.
Mason Lake
If you were told that there was this 60 mile bike race around this lake called Mason Lake where you get about 3 seconds of a nice view of it per lap, where 98% of the time it is cold, rainy, hailing, there are about 6 total spectators cheering you on, no prizes for anybody, no beer at the end, no food, it costs $30, and the sprint is notorious for being a crashfest, what kind of moron would want to do that? Well bike racers, that's who! This classic event is where the Cat 5s come to prove that they are the next Lance Armstrong - shitty conditions be damned - and the rest of us to get our racing on. And this year the race did not disappoint.
It started out cold and somewhat windy. Only about 50 people from all afternoon fields showed up, so we all got jumbled into one large group, cat 12s, 3s, masters and a few women too. It started out with attack after attack until finally 7 people got away for good on the 2nd lap of 5. I was feeling cooked and tried at one point to bridge up to the 7 and ended up getting about 30 meters closer before I became so tired that I drifted to the back. At this point, I was just trying to get my workout on. I missed a chase break on lap 4 and by then there was snow on the ground. When the final sprint for 15th place came around, I was done, stuck behind a wheel that was drifting back hard and ended up thank-God-we're-done pedaling through the finish.
Above is a picture summarizing Mason Lake. There is some snow on the windshield wipers, yet it is sunny at the moment. Got my spare wheels, got out of my cold and wet clothes, sped my way back to Tacoma, got 2 hot-n-ready pizzas, ate 2 slices, showered, ate another slice, got driven to the train station, barely finished assembling my bike for the train as it rolled up, and then ate 7 more slices of pizza on the train.
Post-weekend thoughts
I am tired. So tired. I did not have the resources available to get into the breaks this weekend. However, I view this weekend as quite positive, perhaps also due to the fact that I'm beginning to read this book Karly gave me for Christmas:
And after reading this book, I'm already putting some of the strategies to use. An interesting passage was that it said that ultra-competitive people expect success so much that they'll rate there successful achievements with lower rates of satisfaction than otherwise happy people rate some of their failures. So you could say I've had some good opportunities to reframe things this week for the good. And honestly a lot of good did happen. I was quite happy to have raced finally.
Racing is different in so many ways from just riding around. To put things in perspective, I have spent more time in HR Z4 this week than the prevous 4 weeks combined and more time in z5 these past two days than my entire training season-to-date. Ok, so in Lehman terms this week my heart was beating at a rate between 160 beats per minute and 174 beats per minute (Z4) for 3 hours and 6 minutes - 2:10 in just these past two races. Even though I didn't get a shot at winning, I realized that just by racing I was pushing myself harder than I ever had on all these solo rides. This was a huge eye-opener to me in that competition seems to drive people to achieve better results than just people working without such conflict. Just look at the HR Zone profile from Mason Lake (z1 - z5 left to right), I just can't get this kind of a workout by myself:
Ok, rest week coming up, need to sleep.
Sequim
I have at times struggled logistically getting to races, but I nailed it for this race. I did all bike maintenance stuff the night before and packed everything before going to bed. And even before this, I had made breakfast for the weekend before leaving Portland. Then I got up and was driving by the time I had wanted to start driving. I got to the race 1 hour and 25 minutes early! I set up the bike and kitted up and even tried some relaxation and visualization exercise before the race with time to spare.
Then we started racing. I had had a plan to just watch things basically the first few laps and then try something lap 3. This strategy was going all fine and well until I tried a break on lap 3 and realized that I did not have enough sustained power output available. I was able to get clear fine, but staying away was a big problem. I got caught quickly. I also had a bit of a problem during the race in that my race food was clif bars which were way too clumpy to be effectively eaten and digested at the pace we were going.
On the final lap I found myself at the back of the pack after fumbling around trying to eat my 3rd clif bar. Not good. I was trying to move up a little bit and was really going to get up there after that final riser. Unfortunately, some people decided to crash themselves in front of me which I could not avoid getting caught up in based on my current position. I was able to slow down enough to slow-motion crash-speed, hit a few bodies with the front wheel, began a brief launch up in the air and then landed on who knows who with my neck. I got up, had to take off my helmet because it was now covering my face and then proceeded to assesses the damage. All body parts still intact and not even scraped up, nice. Spin the rear carbon wheel.. it's true! Spin the front carbon wheel, it's also true!!! YESS!!!! Best crash ever!
Although I didn't get a chance to contest the sprint I was relieved that there wasn't any pressure at this point so I happily pedaled my way in z2 and even did my own sprint from 200m. Then it was another logistical whirlwind - chugging chocolate almond milk, getting packed, driving to Oak Table, chugging some more chocolate almond milk, eating an entire apple pancake at Oak Table in about 15 minutes, speeding my way all the way to Winslow with 10 minutes to spare before the 2:55 ferry! This view never gets old:
Ate dinner with my good friend Randy over at Wild Ginger, drove back to Tacoma, watched "No Stings Attached" with my sister and her quirky housemate and getting to bed later than I should at about 11:15.
Mason Lake
If you were told that there was this 60 mile bike race around this lake called Mason Lake where you get about 3 seconds of a nice view of it per lap, where 98% of the time it is cold, rainy, hailing, there are about 6 total spectators cheering you on, no prizes for anybody, no beer at the end, no food, it costs $30, and the sprint is notorious for being a crashfest, what kind of moron would want to do that? Well bike racers, that's who! This classic event is where the Cat 5s come to prove that they are the next Lance Armstrong - shitty conditions be damned - and the rest of us to get our racing on. And this year the race did not disappoint.
It started out cold and somewhat windy. Only about 50 people from all afternoon fields showed up, so we all got jumbled into one large group, cat 12s, 3s, masters and a few women too. It started out with attack after attack until finally 7 people got away for good on the 2nd lap of 5. I was feeling cooked and tried at one point to bridge up to the 7 and ended up getting about 30 meters closer before I became so tired that I drifted to the back. At this point, I was just trying to get my workout on. I missed a chase break on lap 4 and by then there was snow on the ground. When the final sprint for 15th place came around, I was done, stuck behind a wheel that was drifting back hard and ended up thank-God-we're-done pedaling through the finish.
Above is a picture summarizing Mason Lake. There is some snow on the windshield wipers, yet it is sunny at the moment. Got my spare wheels, got out of my cold and wet clothes, sped my way back to Tacoma, got 2 hot-n-ready pizzas, ate 2 slices, showered, ate another slice, got driven to the train station, barely finished assembling my bike for the train as it rolled up, and then ate 7 more slices of pizza on the train.
Post-weekend thoughts
I am tired. So tired. I did not have the resources available to get into the breaks this weekend. However, I view this weekend as quite positive, perhaps also due to the fact that I'm beginning to read this book Karly gave me for Christmas:
And after reading this book, I'm already putting some of the strategies to use. An interesting passage was that it said that ultra-competitive people expect success so much that they'll rate there successful achievements with lower rates of satisfaction than otherwise happy people rate some of their failures. So you could say I've had some good opportunities to reframe things this week for the good. And honestly a lot of good did happen. I was quite happy to have raced finally.
Racing is different in so many ways from just riding around. To put things in perspective, I have spent more time in HR Z4 this week than the prevous 4 weeks combined and more time in z5 these past two days than my entire training season-to-date. Ok, so in Lehman terms this week my heart was beating at a rate between 160 beats per minute and 174 beats per minute (Z4) for 3 hours and 6 minutes - 2:10 in just these past two races. Even though I didn't get a shot at winning, I realized that just by racing I was pushing myself harder than I ever had on all these solo rides. This was a huge eye-opener to me in that competition seems to drive people to achieve better results than just people working without such conflict. Just look at the HR Zone profile from Mason Lake (z1 - z5 left to right), I just can't get this kind of a workout by myself:
Ok, rest week coming up, need to sleep.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The Success Equation
The problem with bike racing and every other competition for a scarce resource in this world is that not everybody can get that scarce resource. However, sometimes it seems like some people have a seemingly natural and unexplainable ability to excel in the area where they can easily obtain something where others struggle desperately to no avail. However, it is no coincidence that some people are just better at some things than others are.
This entire world is discrete. There are a certain number of people in this world, there is even a certain number of matter in this world, the point is that nothing is infinite in this natural world. And furthermore, rules hold together this world: gravity keeps matter close together, thermodynamics cause weather. And even furthermore there are patterns to everything: certain ways to race a bicycle race that gives you a good chance of winning and certain things to say to women to make them attracted to you.
On a spiritual note, however, my Lord Jesus Christ is infinite and has the power to accomplish anything despite the laws and general patterns of the world since He created all that. But on the other hand, His way of doing things can dramatically differ from what any one person can judge to be good, bad, preferred or even desired. So even though it can be possible for a paralyzed man to desire to win the Tour de France, this man is subject to the conditions placed on him by God.
No matter how strong of a bike rider you are, since you probably don't have such a superior amount of fitness that you can ride away from everyone since you are constrained to the general abilities of the human body, there has to be some management of the exertion of the potential energy you have. Similarly, with women (the other obnoxious area of my life where it seems like it's impossible to achieve success) since I am constrained by the amount of base attractiveness I have relative to every other douchebag competing for the same woman, there has to be some difference in my methodology for achieving my goal. So, I have come up with an equation to describe this problem:
Success
This is the end result that you want. In a bike race, usually the result you want is to be the first across the line. With women, I want to have consistent companionship with a woman that loves me how I like to be loved and enjoys receiving my love as well. So, how to get these things?
Situational Awareness
Do you really understand what is going on around you? In a bike race, do you know how many miles are left in the race? How to tell who is feeling strong? Or how good you are feeling? The world around us feeds us data about the current state of everything. But how good are you at determining exactly what the world is telling you? When this bonehead Evan from Guinness makes an attack 5 miles into a 70 mile race, how likely is it that he will ride faster than the other 50 riders for the next 65 miles? In the sprint, who is the sprinter that knows what wheel to take and where should you position yourself prior to those last 3 turns?
With women it is just as complex, but my awareness is so bad that I can barely guess what is happening. And at times I have let my feelings rage out of control to the point where I'm so excited about a woman that I can't see that she's actually not as good as I think she is. The point is that each situation has particles of information located all over the place and the more of this information that the brain can process and catalog, the more informed one will be when the time comes to make a decision about what action to take.
Strategy Formulation
So, how to achieve your goal? To win a bike race you have to ride hard and fast, right? To get a girl you have to "be yourself", right? Unfortunately for things that are hard to get, it is usually not simple. In fact it is annoying and painful and at times compelling to make one try harder.
If you ever fail in succeeding, you probably did something wrong. Perhaps that breakaway attempt at mile 5 of a 70 mile race was not a good idea. Maybe I shouldn't have been so nice to that woman that wasn't all that interesting. To achieve your goal there are patterns that can be more effective for certain kinds of situations. To win from a bike race, your timing must be just right to be first across the line. To get into a loving relationship, both parties must be interested in and working towards the benefit of each other.
The challenge is in the details of how to achieve your goal. And typically and even statistically if you really want to study it, there are patterns that generally can be followed to obtain a certain result. There are patterns that rarely work such as breaking away 5 miles into a 70 mile race or being the most boring person on earth to a woman, but then others patterns that are usually more successful like being behind a good wheel up until the last point of a field sprint or with women... actually I don't have much advice to offer with that. But the more ways one can identify to achieve their goal the more arsenal one will have in trying to achieve their goal.
Execution
With whatever strategy you use, there is the slight matter of actually carrying it out. You can be in exactly the right spot at the right time and still execute poorly and thus not achieve the level of success you wanted. For example, at last year's Franz Bakery Crit I had planned on sprinting for the win, but pedaled through the final corner crashing myself and then the field passed me, however at the Salem Crit I sprinted for the win on a 500m straightaway.
Luck
Luck can be anywhere in the spectrum between good and bad. If you had no idea what was going on around you and you didn't really have a plan, but the result of whatever you executed was success, than you had good luck. If you did not achieve your desired result despite thinking you were aware of your situation and came up with and executed what you thought was the best possible strategy, then you had bad luck. Luck is an interesting factor because it basically represents a situation you were not aware of or some strategy you weren't realizing that you were doing. If everything about the world is known and all possible strategies and their outcomes are already known then luck is a passive variable in the equation.
Bad luck for example can range from being struck by lightning to getting a flat tire. Yet since the world is discrete these items are not random. There are patterns to lightning and you're much more likely to be struck by it if you bike around holding a 40 foot metal pole sticking into the air in a thunderstorm in Florida. But even with the flat tire, the chances are far less likely that you'll get a flat tire if you slap on a brand new tire in substitute for the tire you've been riding since last season. Luck is an opportunity to learn more about the world and various situations and what strategies you can design to combat such a problem in the future or if whatever caused the good luck is replicable, perhaps this can be used again to achieve success again.
Resources
No matter how well you sense things, pick good plans and execute them well, you are bound by the physical resources at your disposal that you will need to accomplish the goal. If you want to win a bike race, you will need to have a bike. If you want to win a time trial against Fabian Cancellara you better have an immense amount of fitness available to use. In the case of the paralyzed man who wants to win the Tour de France, while he himself may not be physically capable of doing it himself, there would be nothing stopping him from giving other resources of his own to another person who has a body functioning well enough that he could accomplish that success.
Putting it all together
Success is tough because it requires a keen situational awareness combined with an effective strategy and then decent enough execution of that strategy or strategies all assuming you have enough resources available to achieve your goal. I've personally got a lot to work on in both the situational awareness and strategy formulation departments. With biking I need to be aware of the course and competitors and how much effort I am able to exert over the remaining distance. With women, I've got to be able to sense what they are feeling like and if I'm being treated well enough by them. And then I've got to have a whole range of tactics to employ in my bike racing from attacking at certain times or even having teammates do work for me. With women, it's really weird how they react to certain strategies and it can often times be surprising what strategies are effective.
Anyways, Racing...
I didn't do Hagg Lake because I got really sick the night before due to what I believe to have been a rotten tomato. So, this weekend it's up to Washington for Sequim and Mason Lake.
This entire world is discrete. There are a certain number of people in this world, there is even a certain number of matter in this world, the point is that nothing is infinite in this natural world. And furthermore, rules hold together this world: gravity keeps matter close together, thermodynamics cause weather. And even furthermore there are patterns to everything: certain ways to race a bicycle race that gives you a good chance of winning and certain things to say to women to make them attracted to you.
On a spiritual note, however, my Lord Jesus Christ is infinite and has the power to accomplish anything despite the laws and general patterns of the world since He created all that. But on the other hand, His way of doing things can dramatically differ from what any one person can judge to be good, bad, preferred or even desired. So even though it can be possible for a paralyzed man to desire to win the Tour de France, this man is subject to the conditions placed on him by God.
No matter how strong of a bike rider you are, since you probably don't have such a superior amount of fitness that you can ride away from everyone since you are constrained to the general abilities of the human body, there has to be some management of the exertion of the potential energy you have. Similarly, with women (the other obnoxious area of my life where it seems like it's impossible to achieve success) since I am constrained by the amount of base attractiveness I have relative to every other douchebag competing for the same woman, there has to be some difference in my methodology for achieving my goal. So, I have come up with an equation to describe this problem:
Success
This is the end result that you want. In a bike race, usually the result you want is to be the first across the line. With women, I want to have consistent companionship with a woman that loves me how I like to be loved and enjoys receiving my love as well. So, how to get these things?
Situational Awareness
Do you really understand what is going on around you? In a bike race, do you know how many miles are left in the race? How to tell who is feeling strong? Or how good you are feeling? The world around us feeds us data about the current state of everything. But how good are you at determining exactly what the world is telling you? When this bonehead Evan from Guinness makes an attack 5 miles into a 70 mile race, how likely is it that he will ride faster than the other 50 riders for the next 65 miles? In the sprint, who is the sprinter that knows what wheel to take and where should you position yourself prior to those last 3 turns?
With women it is just as complex, but my awareness is so bad that I can barely guess what is happening. And at times I have let my feelings rage out of control to the point where I'm so excited about a woman that I can't see that she's actually not as good as I think she is. The point is that each situation has particles of information located all over the place and the more of this information that the brain can process and catalog, the more informed one will be when the time comes to make a decision about what action to take.
Strategy Formulation
So, how to achieve your goal? To win a bike race you have to ride hard and fast, right? To get a girl you have to "be yourself", right? Unfortunately for things that are hard to get, it is usually not simple. In fact it is annoying and painful and at times compelling to make one try harder.
If you ever fail in succeeding, you probably did something wrong. Perhaps that breakaway attempt at mile 5 of a 70 mile race was not a good idea. Maybe I shouldn't have been so nice to that woman that wasn't all that interesting. To achieve your goal there are patterns that can be more effective for certain kinds of situations. To win from a bike race, your timing must be just right to be first across the line. To get into a loving relationship, both parties must be interested in and working towards the benefit of each other.
The challenge is in the details of how to achieve your goal. And typically and even statistically if you really want to study it, there are patterns that generally can be followed to obtain a certain result. There are patterns that rarely work such as breaking away 5 miles into a 70 mile race or being the most boring person on earth to a woman, but then others patterns that are usually more successful like being behind a good wheel up until the last point of a field sprint or with women... actually I don't have much advice to offer with that. But the more ways one can identify to achieve their goal the more arsenal one will have in trying to achieve their goal.
Execution
With whatever strategy you use, there is the slight matter of actually carrying it out. You can be in exactly the right spot at the right time and still execute poorly and thus not achieve the level of success you wanted. For example, at last year's Franz Bakery Crit I had planned on sprinting for the win, but pedaled through the final corner crashing myself and then the field passed me, however at the Salem Crit I sprinted for the win on a 500m straightaway.
Luck
Luck can be anywhere in the spectrum between good and bad. If you had no idea what was going on around you and you didn't really have a plan, but the result of whatever you executed was success, than you had good luck. If you did not achieve your desired result despite thinking you were aware of your situation and came up with and executed what you thought was the best possible strategy, then you had bad luck. Luck is an interesting factor because it basically represents a situation you were not aware of or some strategy you weren't realizing that you were doing. If everything about the world is known and all possible strategies and their outcomes are already known then luck is a passive variable in the equation.
Bad luck for example can range from being struck by lightning to getting a flat tire. Yet since the world is discrete these items are not random. There are patterns to lightning and you're much more likely to be struck by it if you bike around holding a 40 foot metal pole sticking into the air in a thunderstorm in Florida. But even with the flat tire, the chances are far less likely that you'll get a flat tire if you slap on a brand new tire in substitute for the tire you've been riding since last season. Luck is an opportunity to learn more about the world and various situations and what strategies you can design to combat such a problem in the future or if whatever caused the good luck is replicable, perhaps this can be used again to achieve success again.
Resources
No matter how well you sense things, pick good plans and execute them well, you are bound by the physical resources at your disposal that you will need to accomplish the goal. If you want to win a bike race, you will need to have a bike. If you want to win a time trial against Fabian Cancellara you better have an immense amount of fitness available to use. In the case of the paralyzed man who wants to win the Tour de France, while he himself may not be physically capable of doing it himself, there would be nothing stopping him from giving other resources of his own to another person who has a body functioning well enough that he could accomplish that success.
Putting it all together
Success is tough because it requires a keen situational awareness combined with an effective strategy and then decent enough execution of that strategy or strategies all assuming you have enough resources available to achieve your goal. I've personally got a lot to work on in both the situational awareness and strategy formulation departments. With biking I need to be aware of the course and competitors and how much effort I am able to exert over the remaining distance. With women, I've got to be able to sense what they are feeling like and if I'm being treated well enough by them. And then I've got to have a whole range of tactics to employ in my bike racing from attacking at certain times or even having teammates do work for me. With women, it's really weird how they react to certain strategies and it can often times be surprising what strategies are effective.
Anyways, Racing...
I didn't do Hagg Lake because I got really sick the night before due to what I believe to have been a rotten tomato. So, this weekend it's up to Washington for Sequim and Mason Lake.
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