I love my bike, but…

For the past week or so, my motivation to get on my bike has been very low. I’m not sure why or how this came about, but lately I seem to be able to find any excuse and am able to justify to myself why it is okay to skip or slack on ‘this bike workout’ or ‘that bike workout’.

Take for example the past two days.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I had a 75’ aerobic ride on the agenda.

On Tuesday evening I decided that I would ride to and from work, as lately traffic has been making me very angry and each day I’m stuck in the car, I wonder why I’m not riding my bike (I’ve been quite road-ragey in fact. It is really not pretty). Anyway, once I drive down the Malahat, it takes about 30’ each way on my bike, so I figured I would ride easy on the way into work and then do the full 75’ after.

The ride into work was good. Cold, but uneventful. [Note to self: it is time for knee warmers in the morning – shorts are not cutting it anymore. Also, gloves.]

About midday yesterday, I decided it would be okay to only ride 45’ after work, justifying this by the fact that I would have ridden 75’ total on the day, even though it wasn’t all at once. Besides, I told myself, I swam immediately before my ride in to work, so that was about 75’ (or more!) of total aerobic activity this morning. 45’ on the way home was totally sufficient.

By 4:00 (30’ before departure time) I was both happy I had ridden my bike and sad at the same time. Happy I had ridden, because I knew if my car was in town, there was no way I would be riding for any length of time that evening. Sad, because I really didn’t want to ride, but had to if I wanted to go home (which I very much did).

The ride home was fine. My legs were tired and my heart wasn’t in it, but it too was uneventful (and warm enough for shorts and short sleeves, so that was nice).

By the time I got to my car (about 30’ into the ride) I decided to pack it in. My latest justification being that I had a “45-60’ aerobic on the rollers” ride on tap for the next morning (aka. today, aka. Thursday) and I would just make sure to do the full 60’, making up for the 15’ I was missing out on my 75’ aerobic.

Totally logical, completely reasonable and absolutely justifiable I told myself. Totally.

Fast forward to this morning. My alarm goes off. It’s time to get up and ride those damn rollers for 60’. I generally really like the rollers, but this morning at 5:30am, well, not so much.

So, what do I do?

Contemplate things for a few moments in a semi-awake state, then promptly set my alarm ahead one hour and go back to sleep.

My excuse du jour?

I’m tired. I’m just listening to my body. Rest is good for me. I can ride tonight when I get home from yoga and if I’m too tired, then I will ride Friday after work… or maybe Sunday. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Yeah, you get the idea. That 45-60’ on the rollers probably isn’t going to happen.

So that’s where I’m at. Essentially 3 weeks out from one of the biggest races of my life and I can’t seem to get past this awful mental block about riding my bike. I only need to put in 3 more weeks of hard training and then I get some down time and a wicked long break exploring an awesome new country. Won’t it be so much better if I work hard for it? Gah, I’m not even tapering and I’m already freaking out. My mind is surely messing with me, right?

Okay, minor freak out aside and on a more positive note... I had a pretty good fartlek run the other night. I may have had (okay, totally did have) the assistance of gravity via some dowhills to help me, but managed to clock a few sub 4:00/km paces on the ol’ Garmin. Gravity assisted or not, it was a pretty good confidence boost.