How was your ride?

I get asked this question a lot. But it was particularly poignant today because of how I’d approached the day in the first place. This year I’d added a lot of metrics to my riding, in particular everything to do with power. Now when I ride I have as many as many as 6 distinct metrics I’m monitoring as I go along. But to be honest, it’s kinda taken the fun out of it.

For a while this year, I’ve been feeling very much as though I can’t do enough to have a good ride. When I feel great, I’m too slow. When I’m fast enough and feeling good, I’m pushing too much power. When I’ve got the right intensity factor, I can’t deal with wind. I often come back from a ride feeling like a failure. Today, I went out to ride just for fun. I did an hour just climbing and dropping Gallagher hill. Now most people wouldn’t find climbing a hill of that grade for an hour fun, but I went for the ride without my technology. I climbed how I wanted to. I descended how I wanted to. Other than knowing how long I was there, I didn’t track any data at all. And I loved it.

So when Faye asked me how my ride was, I was unequivocal in my answer: great! Some times too much information is just that: too much.   I truly love triathlon and in particular the cycling so to lose the love of it would just be criminal. And so it was quite a laugh to see Seth Godin’s article that very same day entitled How was your bike ride.  He, in his constant insight, , captured the exact same thought on the exact same day. He talks about how the point of a bike ride seems to have been lost in our constantly measured and constantly shared world.

While it’s typical to be reaching the edge both mentally and physically this close to a long course race, it’s goo to be reminded of why you got started in the first place.  I remembered today why I do what I do and it gives me great confidence as I head I to my half-ironman weekend. May all your rides be good rides measured or not.