How many times have I woken up, still feeling tired and dreading the day ahead of me. I have never been a morning person, quite the opposite. My first job was working as a cabaret club lighting engineer. At 16 I worked in a famous cabaret club in the UK and created the stage lighting for well-known acts of the time like The Three Degrees, David Essex, numerous cabaret show bands and comedians. I usually started work around 8pm and left for home between midnight and 1am. I would go to college the next day at 8am. My lighting was way better than my studies in those years. When the club closed and became a discotheque I became a DJ. Again, I worked evenings and studied fashion at college in the daytime. So, when I finally moved to London to study Fashion at Harrow college of art, my best designs and creativity were always done in an evening and early hours of the morning. This continued when I graduated and moved to Italy in 1988. My first job was working on a collection for Armani and Erreuno followed by being head designer for Clara Antonini. I would spend the days drinking coffee, talking, and generally passing time and then designing and coming up with ideas alone in my apartment at nights. It really suited me. I have always been a night bird.
So, getting out of bed, knowing a three-hour bike ride and an hour in the gym lies ahead of me isn’t very exciting. To be honest they sort of loom over me knowing they need to be done despite my only real desire early is to find coffee, a lot of coffee. However, even on the days when it takes me hours to finally put on the Lycra, fill endless bottles with water and hydration powders and finally get on the bike, there is something quite satisfying once the tasks are completed. It’s a bit like a hard ride, I would be lying if I said they are really enjoyable in the moment, on the bike, but once you reach your finish line it feels great. On an easy day on the road, it’s wonderful to be outside, in the moment, feeling very much alive, but there is also the feeling of having to push harder, give as much as you have because the challenge that lies ahead is going to take far more than just leisurely pedalling along. After a tiring five-hour flat ride, feeling shattered, standing in the shower, it dawns on you that in a few months you will have to ride double that distance with 3 mountains thrown in for good measure.
A strange thing happens though if you train consistently. You slowly get ready to go out and ride. You think you have 5 hours of suffering ahead of you. You start out and wonder how or even if you are going to be able to ride the 50-70 miles for the day, as tired as you feel. That’s usually the day that when I finally return home, only to realize it was one of my best rides. Thinking ahead isn’t always the best idea.
I found in golf that thinking ahead about your score doesn’t work. The cliche “one shot at a time” is the only way to play as good as you can on any particular day. In cycling it’s a bit the same, one mile at a time. Get to next hill, the next climb, the next turn. Find a rhythm for the day and settle into the moment. The end will come in time. Watching the clock and counting the time actually makes time go slower. So, I have found that probably the hardest thing in cycling is actually just getting on the bike. Once you get on it is literally “just like riding a bike.”