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Motivation
This chapter was written after a request by a racer. It has to do
with the motivational problems faced in a sometimes difficult sport
like cycling.
One of the first questions we have to ask is, "What motivated you to
start racing in the first place?"
Most people are first motivated into bike racing based on the
enjoyment of the physical and social sensations or pleasures of the
sport. We enjoyed the sensation of what we considered going really
fast, the bike handling, the improved fitness, and the basic social
characteristics of the sport.
When you first started racing or even serious recreational cycling,
you really enjoyed having a snappy, responsive racing machine under
you. This is very much like climbing into a high performance car and
reviving the engine or speeding through some corners. That new and
very rewarding sensation felt good every time you did it so you
wanted to do it a lot more.
But there is a little problem with a sensation-oriented form of
enjoyment. That problem is that we tend to become accustomed to any
stimulus so that it doesn't feel as exciting after a while. But
there are techniques, which can bring some of this back such as
getting a "junker" bike to ride on short easy days or during the
off-season. When you return to your pro bike, the increased response
is more obvious and slightly new again.
Another way to handle this problem is to take off from racing and
training for a while and do other activities. We call this cross
training and cross training can be as important or even more
important for psychology than for physiology. When you return to the
sport, the bike feels snappy under you again and it becomes more fun
to train and race.
Overtraining can cause several problems with motivation. The first
is that your fitness drops and you don't feel so well or positive.
You are still much more fit than years before but you "FEEL" down.
It can also cause your mind and body to feel tired. A simple
solution here is to take off for from a few days to a few weeks
depending on how overtrained you are. Your body will recover from
the overtraining, your fitness will increase, your body and mind
will feel much better, and you will be more motivated to train and
race.
The sociology can change causing you to lose motivation. Most people
come into bike racing with one or more novice friends and you are
just having fun. You ride, laugh, tell jokes, and horse around a
lot. You make up sprints and games on the spot and PLAY at your bike
racing. But your friends or their attitudes may change and become
too serious or they may leave the sport and you find yourself riding
with prudes. Suddenly the sport isn't the fun it was.
You may need to find new friends, check your attitude to see if you
have become too serious, take some time off the bike, or even find a
new or younger club with the attitude you enjoyed when you started
racing. Coaching some of those silly beginners can do wonders for
your attitude and return the fun to the sport.
I have learned in watching the pros that they play on their bikes a
lot in training and racing. Very often, the best pros take their
racing and training less seriously than amateurs. They are
disciplined and work hard but that work is very often intermingled
with play such as calling surprise sprints or horsing around. I have
watched top pro's chase each other and play tag in warm-up before a
race. In other words, they still have fun with their sport.
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in pro racing. You can tell
when an outstanding pro is about to go over the hill in cycling by
his behavior and attitude. If you see a rider who has started to
lose the fun and enjoyment or has stopped playing when riding, he is
about to stop those little fun jumps, sprints, and attacks that
increased his fitness and timing and gave him the edge which put him
at the top of the sport.
As his fitness drops off, his performance drops, then he doesn't
enjoy the sport as much, he becomes depressed, it becomes more
difficult to train as hard, and he starts snow balling downward in
his racing. Unless he does something soon, his career is over. I
have watched this happen for decades. Most people think these riders
are physically burned out but it is the rider's head and not his
body, which needs the help.
The best thing to do here is for this pro to take some serious time
off from the sport. This could be from months to a year or more.
Then he needs to come back into it as play and having fun.
This tends to be a particular problem when a rider has had one or
more bad seasons because of injury or illness. Suddenly, the coach
and manager get on them about their performance instead of helping
them develop a recovery program and the pressure pushes the rider
down even more. The bike isn't fun any more and it must stay fun for
a sport that requires the miles and intense training that bike
racing does.
Other things, which can cause this phenomenon for amateurs, are
problems at work, family problems, financial problems, weather, and
many others. The key is to develop an attitude, which returns the
joy to the sport. Instead of seeing your sport as being so critical
or a part of the total problem picture, learn to see it as a brief
escape from your problems and the stress.
Some times, you may have to find or create a more positive
environment such as returning to recreational cycling for a while
with some people you find fun to ride with. Or you may want to have
yourself down graded to a lower category where it is easier to
compete and, therefore, more fun. This should help you bring your
fitness back up and make it possible for you to upgrade again but to
fun racing.
Some times you just need to go ride the bike and enjoy it again or
just go surfing or fishing for a while. If you are serious about
your racing so that it has ceased to be a pleasant hobby, get
another hobby to return some of the fun to your life. Do a little
gardening for relaxation or learn to play a musical instrument,
dance, or paint to relieve some of the stress you are putting on
yourself to "make it" in cycling.
You have to keep your mind healthy too!
Because it is so important to becoming a better
cyclist, I devote 10 chapters to sports psychology in my book
A Better Way To Train.
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