Cycling: Sport of Masochists (and the Sick, the Poor, and the Stupid)

I began cycling five years ago and was quickly drawn into the competitive world of the sport. Soon I was training many days a week, and began to set goals for myself in local races. Still, at that time it was all fun and games. I enjoyed the training. I got to escape from the city and ride long miles at a comfortable pace.

However, now that I’m competing at the national (and occasionally international) level, the fun and games are a thing of the past. I look forward to races, and I mostly enjoy the travel involved, but training has become an unmitigated pain—literally—in my arse. The stronger and faster I become, the more I have to hurt during training, in order to make myself better. It’s a horrible, vicious cycle (no pun intended).

Cycling’s funnyman commentator, ex-pro Bob Roll, wrote wryly about how tough biking is on the body: “It is better to drink turpentine and eat creosote than eat PowerBars and drink CytoMax. You’ll get sick. Sick is good. Good health is bad for a bike racer. If you are healthy, you aren’t training hard enough. Healthy, wealthy, and wise is for ambassadors and Republican presidents, not bike racers. You NEED to be sick, poor, and stupid.”

The more experience I gain as a professional cyclist, the more I agree with Bob. The basic tenet of cycling training (as for many sports) is to break down the muscles so they rebuild stronger and more able to handle the stresses that will be inflicted on them. The training process that we use to break down our muscles consists of up to five hours of endurance training a day (or even more, for men at the highest level of the sport). The stronger you get, the harder you have to push those pedals for hours at a time…and the more it hurts!

I am constantly tired and sore, and often succumb to colds and flus. I used to think this seemed wrong—shouldn’t athletes be healthier than the general public? After all, I eat an extremely healthy diet, I get tons of sleep, and I spend my days exercising in the fresh air. However, most cyclists I know agree that feeling constantly run down is simply normal; they realize that, as Bob Roll said, “If you are healthy, you’re not training hard enough.”