Friday, September 18, 2009

Riding a century (i.e. shop talk among cyclists referring to the 100-mile distance) was an endurance challenge pretty high on my list of all-time things to do. I like to keep a list of personal challenges that most excite me and try focus on tackling some sort of significant challenge every 6-12 months or so. A mentor of mine told me a long time ago to write my goals down as a method of committing to them and since that time I keep a list of financial, educational and personal goals that I revise about every month. As I look back over that list, it is amazing to see that I have accomplished most of my goals and at least come very close to accomplishing all of them. So when I committed to riding the 2009 Aids Ride for Life and recorded it on my goal sheet, I knew that I was as good as committed and finally hit that goal as well last weekend.


Most people riding the 100-mile distance typically put in about 12 weeks of serious training that includes an increasing schedule of regular riding distances each week. Even following an increasing distance riding schedule one never typically rides over 70-80 miles during training with the understanding being that on day of the ride you will summon the strength and to grind out the remaining distance riding on pure adrenaline. There are all types of training programs available to download and most of schedules will allow you to reach the century distance and do so in a pretty good time. My ride last weekend took me 8 hours to complete and by about mile 80 I was surely riding on endorphins and pure determination to finish the race. As you might imagine, being on the bike for that length of time would make anyones hither-parts rather tender and so my goal at that point was to finish as quickly as possible so that I could sit down somewhere comfy and relax.


All-in-all the ride was fun. As with finishing any endurance activity it was an exercise in the proverbial mind over matter. But I think that all goals are the same way actually. Sometimes even our most challenging goals are not always challenging given the nature or scale of the activity, but instead challenging because we psyche ourselves out of thinking that we can do it. That is why writing your goals down is important. Writing your goals down prevents you from psyching yourself out and forces you to commit. Once you commit, then the path to achievement automatically becomes clear. That was the case for me with accomplishing my first 100 mile bike ride. Whether I do another century ride is yet to be seen, but at least I can cross that off my list of goals knowing that I have officially crossed the finish line!