Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer, Motivational Speaker

The Full Dose

I took part in the Mountain Mayhem 2007 24-hour mountain bike race this weekend as part of a team of four - we entered the "sport" category and weren't particularly competitive/serious about the whole thing, but it was a wonderful weekend of training, mud, sleep deprivation, mud, Red Bull, mud, energy gels, mud and hot dogs. Teams race as a relay, with (theoretically) one rider on the track for the entire 24-hour period.

I raced in this event last year (over a slightly different and far drier course) and felt far stronger and fitter this time round. So much so, in fact, that I'm now considering doing a solo 24-hour race later this year. My technical ability was still useless - my mountain bike has been gathering dust for months as I've cranked out big training mileages on my road bikes - and though I floundered on some of the tricky sections, I'm worried that I've finally caught the marathon-racing bug.

There's a compelling piece by Keith Bontrager on why something that sounds like an awful way to spend a weekend is actually so rewarding:

"That ability to endure, and the perspective that you acquire on facing hardship makes you stronger and tougher in a lot of ways that are unrelated to cycling, if you get the full dose. It’s an odd feature of modern life that we need to find ways to do this during recreation, though there are certainly advantages to making it discretionary rather than a fact of daily life. But avoiding this sort of physical effort entirely seems to make us go haywire, mentally and physically. Tempting as it is (if you’ve got the money), humans, as a species, do not do well for long as bliss ninnies. We seem to adapt well to the stresses that racing serve up. Preparing for and succeeding at 24 hour racing is a very good way to get a decent dose. There are others. Pick your poison – it is good for you…"

{ Filed under Training on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. }