Building Endurance

January 25, 2018

The 12 and 6 hour races in Temecula Ca, are this coming weekend on January 27th 2018. They are put on by So.Cal Endurance and are fantastic. The 12 and 6 hour are on Saturday and are followed up by the Enduro on Sunday. I’m going to enter the 6 hour to work on some race base for some more important races later in the year.  I haven’t put in too many long rides this year, so I’m a little nervous about jumping into an endurance event. That worry got me thinking about endurance in general, not just on the bike. How do we tackle events, activities, or work that we know is going to push us past our comfort zones? How do we do that work?

I struggle with this some times. I tend to favor quick efforts with a short path to rewards. I like direct feedback from direct input. Work for long term goals often don’t feed that need. Take this site, I’ve been working on it for over 6 weeks with no measurable return, as I type this, the site isn’t even live yet. There are no analytics to let me know if I’m on the right path. No comments to guide me in one direction or another. I have no idea, yet ,if any of the articles and blog posts I’ve worked on will be of value to the people I hope to reach. So how to I keep going when the process I have to go through doesn’t provide the feedback I typically need?

Just Keep Moving

The way I’ve approached this is one interval at a time. I don’t know how many laps I can do at the 6 hour, but I know I can do one so I’ll start there then do the next one. I’ll keep doing that until my time is up or I can’t do another one. Try to break up your goals into smaller achievable chunks that you feel like you can hit. Find motivation in the completion of every step, not just the last one before the big reveal. That’s what completeing this post will do for me. It’s just one more step, and I’ll keep moving.

Love the Process More than the Results

This has been a big one for me this year, in racing, in work, and on projects like NFR Cycling. I’m focusing on the process of the work more than the completion of the work. By doing that, it’s easier to come back to it again and again. That brings us back to endurance, you have to keep going; do the next pedal stroke, the next lap, the next race, and the next blog post. That’s the literal definition of endurance, “enduring a difficult process or situation without giving way”.

How do you keep going? Let me know on Twitter @nfrcycling #DoTheWork

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