A Day in the Life
I mentioned in my last blog the controllable aspects of improving as a cyclist – training well, eating well, resting well...
It’s with this in mind that I thought I would do a blog about the day to day happenings of me, or most other guys doing the same thing – living and racing abroad on the continent. Days of the week, dates, birthdays, is for the most part irrelevant to us, with everything coming down into two categories – race days and training days.
Training day
8:30 – Wake up, take pulse and neck vitamins. If I’ve had a particularly hard day previously, timings can get extended (strict discipline needed here to define what a hard day is!)
8:45 – Breakfast. The most yearned for meal of the day after going to bed with a gurgling stomach and waking up chewing the corner of my pillow. A bowl of porridge with banana and some sort of condiment. (fellow Morvelo TT member Katie Winton can tell you more on this subject). Speculoos paste and Peanut butter are prime candidates, though.
My various housemates have their respective rising times, and I gauge the progress of the morning based almost entirely on this, in the mean time fiddling around getting my bike ready to ride and making excuses for “just one more coffee”.
10-11am - Ride. The first highlight of the day (usually). Some days it is the bane of my existence, and I feel bad for thinking like that when I do, but with one solitary thing consuming most aspects of life, it is inevitable to feel like that sometimes. If I have a long ride to do I’ll leave earlier, but as a general rule of thumb I try to time it so that my return coincides with lunch. Once back, it’s time for a stretch, protein shakes and a shower, before:
1-3pm – Lunch. I go through phases of what I have for lunch. Like a fickle school dining hall, there is always some sort culinary fad going through the house kitchen. Tortilla wraps were particularly successful a few weeks ago, omelettes have been big in the past. Your stock standard salad sandwich is currently my prime suspect, though.
2-5pm –These hours of the day have a habit of either passing achingly slowly or fast. I am still unsure as to the factors that determine which, it is a mystery. The afternoon hours are spent doing any errands, like going to the shops, visiting people, tinkering with bicycles and other things. If there happens to be cycling on TV, then you can be sure that the afternoon will be spent watching full coverage on Eurosport. Any excess time on your feet, or doing anything remotely tiring, is wasted recovery time, so the more time spent sat down with a cup of tea the better!
6-8pm – Dinner. The second highlight of the day and something which I have likely been looking forward to for a while. Time not being an issue, I try to be as adventurous as my culinary skills allow when cooking. Diet is a big part of being a cyclist, and you get what you pay for, so I like to buy good quality food and cook it as best I can. This year has even seen a small vegetable patch be cultivated in our back garden, which is now churning out mange tout, courgettes, lettuce and spinach aplenty.
8-10pm Farting around. Evening hours are spent reading, watching TV, going on the computer and generally not doing much. Once a week we might go into town for an Ice Tea, for the boys to embarrass themselves trying to speak Dutch to the local girls.
Race Day
7am – Wake up. Exactly the same routine, but an hour or two earlier to leave enough time before pre race meal.
9am-12pm – Travel. Team races usually start around 1 or 2, and as we have to get a lift with the DS or Soigneur. This means getting there 3 hours early for them to go to the briefings and such like, which leaves a couple of hours to chill out, look at the race handbook, and eat the by now cold, stodgy pasta cooked that morning.
If it’s a kermis race, which are done individually, there is time to eat pasta at home, and then ride out as a group to wherever the race is as they don’t start until 3pm.
1-6pm Race. The big ones can be anything up to 180/190km, and so range between 3.5 and 5 hours long. I’m guessing I don’t need to describe what happens here though!
5-7pm is spent doing the normal post race rituals of showering, eating, getting a congratulatory or disheartened talk from the manager, and driving back home.
8pm. Arrive home, get dinner on the go. Something pre-prepared like lasagne or shepherds pie works wonders at times like these. Depending on the standard of the facilities at the race, a second shower is often necessary!
9-11pm Nothing changes here. The same as any other day, the evening is spent chilling out not doing much, and feeding the appetite which is by now setting in after the afternoon’s exertions.
11-12pm Bed. A combination of late exercise, late dinner, and too many energy gels usually means bed is a bit later on race days. Despite being physically tired it can be hard to switch off, especially if the race has gone particularly well or badly (another excuse for a post race lie in).
Since I arrived in Belgium in early March, the vast majority of my days will be a carbon copy of either of these. Having a routine can be really good at times, when you are going well usually - keeping within the lines, doing what you need to do, and enjoying the discipline because of the results it is giving you. On the flip side, the mindless routine and regimental layout can at times be exhausting and frustrating. It is mentally pretty difficult sometimes, and the lack of freedom is hard to overcome. I’m pretty sure this is what ‘cracks’ most people, not the severity of the racing.
When these rough patches do occur, it is just a case of putting your head down, carrying on with the routine, and waiting for it to feel normal again.