Introversion

The primary difference between an extrovert and an introvert is the preferred way in which a person experiences their reality. Extroverts experience and interact with their world by outward means while an introvert experiences and interacts with their world through inward, reflexive means. Everyone does both, but most do one more than the other.

I've found that time alone on my bicycle is a form of introversion for me. I am reflecting on my day, on my body, on my emotions, on my physical self in a very intimate way. However, this introversion turns into a highly extroverted self when I am riding with friends. Reflection of this time conveys a ratio of introversion and extroversion when I ride, and my estimate is that it runs somewhere in the neighborhood of 75:25% of the time - this clearly makes riding an introverted activity for me.

Perhaps I need this time for myself, a time where I am auditing my emotions, my actions, and thinking. It's a time of observation without judgement; reflection without regrets. When I began my journey to be a competitive athlete I found it easy to get down on myself - I used the time on my bike as a way for me to get angry for not being better at it, and I never enjoyed it. It was about my ego, it was about beating up on people, it was about talking a talk.

Riding my bike is fun - initially, this wasn't evident. In fact, in almost every sport I've done, initially they sucked. Swimming is my first experience with this. When I began as a Frosh high schooler, I hated it. But by the end of my sophomore season I would spend the last three periods of the school day dreaming of diving into a lane and eating up some yardage. It became my release from being in a military school, from the oppressive shit I had to deal with, I introverted my experiences to focus on streamlining my form, perfecting the kick turn, propelling myself as far as I could with three graceful butterfly kicks.

Nobody could touch me beneath the water. I couldn't hear the harassment about being queer. I didn't have to stare at some poor underclassmen and scream at him, hit him, or be an otherwise brutal fuck-tard because that was how "men" dealt with shit. My battle was with the water, my form and soft rhythmic breathing was my weapon.

Like I say, I don't ride my bike to race, I race because I ride my bike. It would be an awful waste of fitness not to race. I've got it, so why not use it for something - racing is not a verification or even a validation. In a race my riding becomes extroverted - I extend this to all sport in fact, competition is an extroverted activity for me - it's not a natural state of affairs to have people around me watching, riding my wheel, trying to drop me. Vise versa, it's not natural for me to want to drop others, grab wheels or attack. I just want to ride. Sometimes I race and I ride away from everyone else. There's no attack, there's no moment of oh-my-god he's railing it and I can't hold on. It's just a moment, usually on a climb, where I look around and nobody else is there. I'm not doing it on purpose, I just found that sought after introverted concentration and forgot I was racing.

If life were a race you'd see me doing this quite a bit. In order for me to do well at something I need to introvert and find that form. Be it riding, swimming, programming, writing - they all have a form, they all have a rhythm. Life is form and rhythm. In life the nexus between two people becomes form and rhythm. Your relationship to yourself and your work is form and rhythm. Your thinking follows a form and a rhythm.

Maybe you don't realize it yet, but there's a pattern in your process. The form of your thinking and the rhythm of your schedule - it's all patterned - patterned to the same extent that I can know in a race there will be attack after attack, then it'll be easy once a break clears, then shit will shatter on the hill. It's a form that follows a pattern, only revealed when I introvert and observe the little nuances of life.

Gears

Gears: an allusion to the ways in which mechanical energy is stored and released dynamically over time, often used as a metaphor in life that denotes how mind numbingly hard shit can be or how simple, light, and fluid a moment is.

Triggers

I used to have a lot of different ideas about various objects and language. For example, about two years after the last time I smoked meth I couldn't use gas stovetops, disposable lighters, tin foil, or other stuff I used for ... using - in the recovery world we call these "triggers," or nouns, verbs, and adjectives that trigger a euphoric recall about using a drug. Let's say I had some serious issues with this for some time (my list of triggers was four pages long, word for word, line by line, double-sided on college ruled paper).

You know that guy who is always making those sexual innuendos about stuff... you're thinking, "where's your head man?" Yeah, that guy, he's always thinking about sex. For me, I was always thinking about drugs. So when I'm hanging out with bike racers and the term "peaking" is used I instantly start thinking about peaking on E or L or G or whatever and it takes me a minute to internalize "I'm not high" then I realize it's not 'that' peaking.

Anyways, I think it's a crock of shit. It probably isn't, but as far as my cycling is concerned, it is. I don't peak. I might lower my volume for a period so I can gain my wits and a lucid sense of reality again, but I don't peak. Not my thing. I show up at races with whatever I've got in the tank. I can't ask myself to sacrifice any more mental energy on bikes, it's a principle. As an amateur, in my mind, it's not worth it to take it that seriously.

If I was going to worlds, I might reconsider. But since my only international event is the Saturday Morning International World Invitational GP I can't really bring myself there. Sure, there's a lot of people out there who I race against who do take it that seriously, and that's cool, I'm not going to judge them... much. But I won't be bothered with that type of mind set.

I've got this pro contract with computer science. It's pretty neat. I like it, and it brings me a different sense of satisfaction than competitive racing. It's more mental than physical - I need both of those mind-sets to be challenged daily because I get board easily. The idea of centering your life around one thing - social stuff, racing stuff, work stuff - isn't healthy. I like the challenge of balancing all of those things, spinning (there's another one of those trigger words) a lot of different plates, but not reading into or allowing any one plate to take over my life.

Acting The Part

I believe your mental game is your game. You've got to know you're going to score before you actually score. You've got to have that confidence. You've got to know you're that fucking good.

Life is a trip like that. It's all about pretending to be something you're not. If you want something you've got to pretend, at least a little bit, that you're already there before you can actually achieve it. You've got to know you're good enough to have it, and that you're that person it just hasn't been realized yet.

Want to be a computer scientist? Act like a computer scientist - do things that computer scientists do. Extend this notion to all your goals. Extend it to interpersonal relationships with other people and yourself - play the part and you'll become it.

I used to be a drug addict. My hobby was altering my consciousness because I didn't want to know myself, I wanted to be something else. Somewhere along the way I decided I wasn't a bad guy, that I deserved better, that I deserved to have good people in my life, and not to allow the negative ones to take up space in my head.

I woke up and wanted to be an athlete. I didn't know what this meant. I didn't understand the dedication that it would involve. I didn't understand the life changing experience that would ensue. All I knew is that I wanted what an athlete had: I wanted something good for myself, something only I could give me. I couldn't purchase it, I couldn't give it away, I couldn't inject it, I couldn't smoke it, I couldn't rail it. I had to work for it.

What kind of athlete did I want to be? Sort of a broad question... deep thought ensued and I decided bikes were pretty awesome. I also look good in lycra so that was a plus. I surrounded myself with people who raced bikes on every level of the sport. At first I thought I wasn't good enough to be better than a category 4 rider. But the more I hung out with other top level amateurs the more I rode and the more the sport grew on me.

All I had to do was wake up everyday and re-commit to acting like an athlete and surround myself with like-minded folks. The goal of being an athlete soon diminished and was replaced with a love for a machine, for pain, and for a minimal amount of glory.

I wake up everyday and I pretend to be a lot of things. Most of these things I would have never seen myself doing six years ago. Most of these things people have told me I would never achieve. But here I am, doing those things, being that person. So to all those people who said you can't or you won't, go fuck yourself - I am and I did.

Training

My general bicycle riding principle:

Don't ride your bike to race, race because you ride your bike.

There is no substitute for owning all your local climbs in the big ring; using smaller gears to go up a climb faster only works when you're doped.

Computers suck almost as much as dopers. Yes, Fabian uses a SRM, as well as all of his colleagues - if I got a check from SRM every time I looked at my power meter I'd use one too - if you're not getting a check then spend that extra cash on a nice pair of Assos bibs, you'll be happier.

Coaches are for people who don't understand why they are riding their bicycle. If you're not going to the Olympics or Worlds then go have fun; intervals are not fun; structured training is not fun - if you want to ride your bicycle fast then every time you go up hill, do it faster than everyone else (in your big ring).

If you feel good, gas it; if you feel square, then don't.

Don't assume anything about how you're going to ride on any given day, ever. Expectations are premeditated resentments.

Always say something about how much you haven't been riding when you show up for a group ride, even if you have 30 hours in your legs that week.

In general, Campy doesn't work better than anything else, you only have it for sex appeal - this isn't a training guideline as much as a overarching observation... just sayin'.

Own an all black Assos kit... or two.. or three...

If you're not at a race, then ride some handbuilt 32 spoke wheels with brass nipples and washers; rolling around on a suitcase of carbon cash is stupid, and makes you look like a tool, especially at Saturday morning worlds.

Drink coffee all the time, especially before you go to bed at night. This will ensure you're ready to go first thing in the morning.

Do a six hour ride with nothing but your favorite beer (or if you're like me, whisky and warm water) in your water bottles at least three times during the winter.

Don't take it seriously.

Minimize everything.

Have fun.

Time time time

8(ish) hours at work, 4 hours on my bike, 5 hours with Lily, 7 hours of sleep, back at work by 7 the following day. Today is the following day. I'm back at work. The sun just came up, it's peaking through the top level window blinds in my basement lab/office. I'm drinking my third jar (I drink my beverages from an old mason jar at work) of Maté this morning.

How sustainable is this? Why do I do it? Every week that goes by seems to go by faster. I crave the moments that slow this process down; moments that make time crawl. Pain slows time; happiness slows time; moments of cathartic emotional, body-disconnectedness, out of mind experiences pulling me closer to the event horizon of my consciousness - then back again.

I first noticed the nexus of emotional states and perception of time in a sweat lodge backpacking six years ago. I've done a my share of sweats and this one was particularly hot - hot enough to push the 12 other people out for air and relief from the neck burning steam coming from the center of the willow branch dome covered in sleeping bags, mats, and tarps. Me and one other, named Shane.

He took the nalgene of water we used to stoke the heat of the lodge and poured it over the rocks, creating a suffocating steam which I was certain was blistering the back of my neck. In agony I motioned to leave the lodge. Shane noticed and said six words that changed my life, "The heat will tell you something."

Really? I wondered.

Curiosity more than anything told me to stay. I sat. It was 30 minutes long. The time it takes me to ride 10 miles; twice the time it takes me to write this blog entry; four times the amount of time it takes me to make my breakfast; eight times the amount of time it takes me to brush my teeth. If time were distance it would be 16 times the distance squared of my desk to the south facing wall in my lab in feet.

It's a number. The discrete way in which we've come to understand our world. None of it is real. The numbers in your checking account; the numbers on your watch; the numbers defining the words in a binary language created so you can read this blog. It's a measurement that doesn't really exist; without time there would be no measurement, there would be no forward motion of the clock hands and thus a discrete measurement would not take place, not in this dimension anyways.

In my search to find a cyclical continuity to my day, one in which the perverted notion of discrete time plays little to no role I find emotional connection with myself and others. There is no discrete measurement of happy or sad. To escape the constant tick-tock, the nagging 800lb pink gorilla in my pocket (AKA my cell phone), I ride my bike, I find emotional connectivity, I let myself experience pain, happiness, sadness, anger, jealousy, the cold and the hot. I experience it because it's real, I experience it because it's telling me something.