The Atheist Training Bible for Old Bicycle Racers, Chapter 19: The dreaded off season
August 7, 2016 § 13 Comments
It’s August. The sun is still beating down. There are still races on the calendar. February is so far away it might as well be in Micronesia. Yet for all that, people are already starting to ponder The Question and its bastard variants, i.e. “What should I be doing for the off season?”
Glad you asked.
First you should take out a calendar for 2016 and see how many races you did. By “races” I don’t mean NPR or Telo or coffee cruises with a sprunt or Strava contests or any ride that features a “sag,” “rest stop,” or a floppy bag filled with goodies.
By “races” I mean events where you pay money, pin on a number, get shouted at by an official in an ill-fitting golf shirt, get pushed around in a pack of doped-up insane people, run the risk of crashing and getting a brain injury, and ultimately either get dropped, get chopped in the sprint, or finish cursing the day you were born and swearing to never do a another one as long as you live or until next week, whichever comes first.
So after toting up all those races you can effectively plan your off season as follows:
- 1-5 races: There is no off season.
- 6-10 races: There is no off season.
- 11-15 races: There is no off season.
- 16+ races: You should have taken a break back in April, because there’s still no off season.
“B-b-b-b-b-but!” you complain. “I’m tired! I’m worn out! I’m mentally fateeeeeeged! I gotta rest!”
All of that is true, but it’s unrelated to the three races you did back in March. In other words:
- You are tired because you are old.
- You are worn out because you are old.
- You are fatigued because you are old.
- You gotta rest because you are old.
And guess what? Next year you will be what is known as “older.” This will require even more rest. It will not require an off season. Off seasons are for ski resorts, not chubby hobby bike profamateurs.
The single biggest obstacle to rest is what we colloquially refer to as the “weekend,” but is more commonly known as “the opportunity to do 200 miles of riding in 48 hours.” This may sound like a mere warmer-upper if you do events like RAAM or have a nickname like “Metal” or “Mr. 10,000.”
For old people, though, it will not work cramming all your weekly miles into a couple of days, somehow hoping that it will compensate for doing little or nothing the rest of the week, and somehow hoping that ((beer+shitty food) x (Mon + Tue + Wed + Thu + Fri) – Big Century Ride = Fitness.
The only thing that will remove your non-season’s season-ending fatigue is an old trick used by hunter-gatherers who had to scrap for every meal every fuggin’ day. It’s the old “get up early trick.”
Yes, your August doldrums are not the result of too much riding but of sloth, and your off season training plan shouldn’t feature anything special at all except this: Get the fuck up early enough to get in your weekday rides, and go the fuck to sleep (there’s a book on this) early enough so that you can get the fuck up early enough to ride again the next day.
Please email the reasons that you can’t go to bed early or you’re a night person or whatever else to: sloth@slothful.com; don’t email them to me because I know why you can’t go to bed early and get up early: You’re lazy and you’d rather pound the extra carafe of tequila or watch the BIG GAME, you know, the game that’s so big they will never have another one like it ever again until next week.
Go ahead, set your alarm for 5:00 or 4:00 or 3:30 or whatever the magic number is, and go the fuck to sleep so that you get the necessary 6 or 7 hours of beddy-bye time. You’ll run into people like Craig Hummer, Doug Murtha, Jim Bowles, and the MB Morning Crew, and never need another off season again.
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Could not be more agree 😉
Hahaha!
Helps to have an early morning group that calls and sends threatening emails (particularly calling out your man or womanhood which ever may apply) when you (I) don’t show up.
Public shaming rocks.
While I’m in agreement with the slothity-slothness thing, I never have and never will understand the getting up in the middle of the night to go ride your bike thing. The reasons, i.e. I like to ride before it get’s windy/to hot, are bs what are you going to do when your industrial park crash-fest happens on a hot / windy day… Oh the penny just dropped another excuse.
I like to ride before I’m awake. The dead brain simulates my tactical thinking during all the races I don’t do.
……but I’m still old and slow.
Yes. We can’t fix the slow part unless you join the Russian Olympic squad.
October 31 is the end of the season…then the cross season (go to Holland), then winter training, then the Tour of Texas…
The wine season, you mean? A SoCal profamateur’s season ends after the nationals he didn’t attend in June.
I know someone who fits that description….JUST!
There is no off-season. Its just a different season. In Southern California, that means every year, we get 1 week of winter, 2 weeks of desert summer, maybe a week of monsoon summer, and the rest of the year is perfect to ride. “Seasons” provide justification for n+1…road, mountain, cross, gran fondo, fuggit rides, wtf routes, industrial park nascar, etc….and a convenient justification for n+1.
Nailed it!!