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Redefining goals

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about genetic potential, how much it determines our success in cycling, and how we even define that success.  I’ve also been preparing for Spring semester classes, and perhaps not surprisingly, the two thought processes have become a bit muddled.  So if you’ve ever wondered what happens when English poetry gets mixed up with bike racing, read on. (For a more scientific take on the issue, see this fascinating post by Dr. Ross Tucker on The Science of Sport .)

The genetic potential thought strand was initially sparked by turning 38.  I know Michele Bartoli is thinking about a comeback at that age and a certain Texan with a penchant for yellow who is nearly my age is jumping back on the bike, but the difference is that they are genetically gifted, while, having as the saying goes, chosen my parents badly (at least when it comes to endurance sports :) ), I most certainly am not.  My palmares makes ” Famous Jewish Sports Legends” read like War and Peace, but each weekend there I am, pinning on a number. 

John Milton , writing about turning 23 (boy, how I wish I could go back to that age and train with the knowledge I have now) complains that his “late spring no bud or blossom showeth.”  In other words, he feels he hasn’t accomplished what he believes himself capable of.  He doesn’t despair of reaching his goals, but those goals remain undefined because he doesn’t know precisely what he is capable of — whatever that potential is, he can do nothing to change its limits.

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even [equal]
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which time leads me and the will of Heaven.

For the devout Milton, accepting these limits is a sign of accepting God’s plan for him.  For me, a much-less-devout bike racer in his late thirties, accepting limits is a bit harder.  Perhaps I’m an optimist (or more likely, deluded), but I always believed that with just a little more work, I’d turn some corner and become a prolific winner.  But the deeper I get into coaching and the more I learn about physiology, the more I understand the ways in which physiology can be a limiter.  So does that mean I have reversed my previously optimistic opinion that with enough work, I can reach my goals.  No, certainly not.  One can certainly be a very successful racer, especially in the masters and lower categories, without being the most genetically gifted, but it does mean that I have shifted those goals slightly so that I no longer define success in cycling as my own personal results.  Rather, I’m just as excited by the results of riders I coach, by talking with them about their experiences, or by analyzing their power files with them as I am by finishing in the money.

That doesn’t mean that I’m done riding and striving for my own results; no I’ll be there every weekend, pinning on yet another number.  But it does mean that even if I don’t get as high a placing as I’d like, I will (try at least) not to fall into a funk because I’ve got other outlets for my cycling obsession, outlets that provide just as much satisfaction.

Milton ends his poem reminding himself that whatever his talents, he performs under his “great Taskmaster’s eye.”  And so do we all, but sometimes those tasks need to be redefined.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 8:20 pm and is filed under bike racing, cycling training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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