What I'm Talking About When I Talk About Cycling*

This title is inspired by an excellent new book by one of my favourite authors, Haruki Murakami, whose first non-fiction book (for a long time anyway) talks about the balance brought about by combining work (he writes 4 hours every morning) before going out for a run (he runs 10km every day). Murakami has completed 27 marathons and talks in depth about how his life philosophies have been informed by this deliberate search for balance between the physical and mental.

For me it is very much the same, but my sport of choice is cycling as opposed to running. Not sure why I could never get my head around running (I was a sprinter at school) and sprinting I was fine at, but this jogging thing I just can't figure out. It's too slow for running(sprinting) and too fast for walking so I'm forever searching for a pace I can sustain, yet frequently end up accelerating to stop the ceaseless pounding on my knees (should you run on your toes like when you sprint and what I'm used to, or should you run on your heels like when you walk.. this I can't get right.. running on your heels just feels too harsh on your knees!). So there is a trick to running which obviously some people, Murakami included, have deftly figured out and turned to their advantage and then there are folks like me, who just can't get off on running, but are truly, madly and deeply in love with another sport instead.

Now admitting to loving cycling these days is like saying I also fully condone the use of performance enhancing drugs, bribery, lying about one's whereabouts and pretending that someone else's blood is my own. However, there is a big difference though and that is the difference brought about when you do something for a living versus doing it for fun. When you do stuff for a living, the stakes are higher and the cost of failure is huge and therefore it is reasonable to believe this stuff is not only limited to the sport of cycling, but present in any profession where you get paid for pushing your body to the limits (now in that broadest definition we can even include models, who get paid for being a size 0 (often with the help of dietary drugs or caught with some even saucier stuff at parties), but could not run to the bus or cycle up a hill, because they may be skinny, but so weak they can't even carry their own luggage. (now that IS depressing)

Back to cycling for fun though. For me that still means trying to cycle further, faster and for longer than what I did last week or the month before or even last year. It is a wonderful outlet, a kind of flow you get into, a meditation where the pedal revolutions function like the meditation chants of 'Om', but much faster and there sometimes comes a point where you forget that it is your legs making the pedals go around, it just seems like you are flying. Armstrong's US Postal team used to say it was like having 'no chain' and I sincerely believe I know what they mean.

The pleasure of getting into a rhythm, moving effortlessly, it is the childhood dream re-lived over and over again, that sense of freedom, of going where you want to go, not where parents cart you off in a car or drag you by your hand. You discover things are not as far as you thought, you discover you can go faster than you thought, from this early pushing of boundaries comes a lifelong desire to keep pushing them further, trying to overcome ourselves and marveling at how much you can achieve by simply putting your mind to it.

And your mind is sometimes the last one you should ask for advice, because whenever experiencing the pain brought about lactic acid burning in your legs going up a really steep hill, your mind (mine at least!) instantly goes into this, aah it hurts.. you should really stop now.. go on .. just a little break? lobbying to my other self that goes.. naah.. just a little further.. to that tree.. to that corner.. almost there.. stay on target.. and comfortably engaging both parts of my mind and becoming more confident at trusting the latter is something only sport can teach you. Interestingly, that same little voice follows you to other parts of your life too, making you nervous before delivering a presentation, going for a job interview, embarking on a big project, but training yourself to chew the elephant (or that hill) one bite at a time, you train your mind to not fear the effort of learning, improving and enabling yourself to celebrate and enjoy the pleasure of achievement.

* Haruki Murakami: What I'm talking about when I talk about running

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