Personal Growth
3 Critical Things I Learned From Cycling 100 Miles In the Pouring Rain
Never commit to a challenge from the comfort of your sofa.
There are some ideas that seem great when you’re sat comfortably on the sofa but not so much when you are right in the thick of the action.
After 7 odd hours of riding in the pouring rain not long ago, that’s exactly how I felt.
The idea in theory sounded glorious. The plan was to cycle 104 miles on a sunny August day to raise awareness and money for the 1 in 4 black men who get diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in the UK. Having only ever ridden 100 miles on one other occasion, it was always going to be a hefty challenge.
But I was confident that with the training I had done and the likelihood of warm August weather I would be fine.
Of course, being the UK, the weather didn’t turn out this way as when the big day came there were flash floods along my route and torrential rain for most of the day.
After the first 15 minutes, my socks were already soaked and I could barely see where I was going.
Undeterred I persisted and eight hours later I finished the ride raising a decent amount of money for charity in the process.
Here are some of my reflections from that day alone on the saddle.
#1 — Imagine How You Feel At The Toughest Moments On Your Challenge
Going into the ride I knew there would be moments when I wanted to spill my guts on the road then find a quiet spot to assume the fetal position.
Basically, I knew it would suck at times — loads.
I spent weeks training for those moments and trying my best to put my mind in that place where’s nowhere to turn but inward. I knew there would be moments when I wanted to do nothing else but give up and crawl into some warm slippers.
When those moments came on the day, I was ready. I relished the chance to see how deep down inside of myself I could go to find the will to push on.
There was one moment when I had to ride past my starting point as the weather on my original route became too hazardous. In order to stay safe but still make the distance, I had to do a few loops around the starting point.
From a practical perspective, this made perfect sense. Physiologically, however, it was horrendous. My whole training regime had been geared towards making it to the final 20 odd miles and then using familiars markers to get me to the finish line. Suddenly I was seeing markers that I had expected in the final stretch coming up only halfway through the day but I was nowhere near finishing.
It wasn’t what I was expecting but my training had prepared me for a hard time.
So What?: It points to the fact that when you are ready to meet a challenge head-on and you prepare accordingly when the going gets tough you’ll more than likely cope.
When you are preparing try to imagine the pain you will likely feel in those moments to get yourself mentally prepared. It’s amazing the power you can have over your mind if you can tell yourself that the difficulty you are experiencing is nothing worse than you have already trained for.
#2 — Conquer Your Mind and The Body Will Follow
When you talk to people about long-distance cycling you often see them wince at just the thought of doing a 20-mile ride let alone 50 or 100.
Whether or not they’re physically capable doesn’t even come into the picture — the mere thought of it puts them off.
In all honesty, I was in the same boat when I first started cycling.
I was quite happy with myself after clocking 7 miles and couldn’t begin to understand how people routinely cycled 50 miles on a Sunday morning.
But the more miles I rode, the more I realised that the fear was not reflected in reality.
Yes, it was tougher going longer distances, but my body didn’t suddenly have some kind of deadly reaction after a certain distance. Instead each time I pushed the boundary, my body and crucially my mind responded. My mind would resist but once we breached our comfort zone, it played ball.
So What?
The mind is a powerful thing but it can be easy to fall prey to its baser instincts. There’s a part of our brains termed the crocodile brain which amongst other things spots danger and helps to keep us alive by avoiding pain.
I often like to imagine that when I’m enduring one of my tougher rides, the croc brain kicks into gear until it’s been overridden by my unwillingness to give in.
To push yourself beyond your current limits you’ll likely need to conquer this part of your brain.
#3 Don’t Try Climb The Mountain All At Once
Sometimes when you are trying to accomplish a big goal, keeping the end in mind is not helpful at all.
When you’re setting off on a 100-mile trek, you’re not thinking about the end. All you need to focus on is getting through the next mile and maybe hitting the first 10-mile mark and then 20, 30 etc.
You break your overall goal into smaller targets. This makes it easier for you to focus but also avoids you being dispirited when things get tough and you feel miles away from the finish.
Cycling long distances has helped me take this mentality into other areas of my life with great results. For example, when I started my first website over a year ago instead of thinking about having an all singing and dancing site with thousands of users every month and a ton of articles, I just focused on one small task each day. This helped to keep me pushing even when things looked rough and I wasn’t seeing results.
So What?
You can use the same approach in any area of your life where it feels like you have a mountain to climb and you don’t feel like you could get to the end.
Keep your mind on the immediate goal at hand and avoid overwhelming yourself with the work still left to go.
Conclusion
Despite how tough that day on the bike was, I’m glad I got a chance to do it. There’s something about testing yourself mentally and physically in challenging situations that cannot be beaten.
As much as I have tried to strengthen myself mentally through reading and exposing myself to the right ideas, nothing comes close in terms of impact to what I get from hard days on my bike. A lot of times I ride solo so there’s no one else to lean on even when the going gets really rough.
My long days on the bike have helped to crystalise a number of critical ideas that now help to shape my behaviour in other areas of my life and could hopefully help you:
- Prepare for a challenge by visualising the toughest moments
- Take control of your mind and your body will follow
- Break up your big goals into small manageable targets
