A Knight To Be

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. My journey started when I decided to ride the 2020 Tour Of Sufferlandria. I had my hesitations because I'm in the final block of a 12-week training plan and wasn't sure about the ToS' impact on the training load and how it would affect my upcoming 4DP test. The "Focused" option answered my concern with overall slightly reduced intensity across all stages of the ToS, to keep things hard, near impossible at times, yet manageable. And so I plunged in with joy, murmuring a poem by Grunter von Agony to myself. On the morn of the Attempt, my remaining rides for the ToS were 14 Vise Grips (Stage 8b); and Power Station + Angels + Thin Air (Stage 9: Grunter's Gran Fondo). I went right ahead, a wee bit sluggish at 4 am, with muted audio and darkness overpowering. (As an avid reader of The Scrolls of A Knight To Be, you already know all this, of course, so thank you for bearing with me as I recap for the ...

The Tour Of Sufferlandria is just around the corner. One week to go. I've decided that it's going to be easy, so I have a much, much better idea. I'm going to ride into a Knighthood on the last day. See? Now, this is an excellent idea, just like winning the Most Aggressive Rider's Award on that snowy Giro mountain stage from ISLTA. The last day of the Tour is 3-stages long. So, if I'm going to be around 3 hours in the saddle anyway, then why not push on for another 7 hours or so? A Knight of Sufferlandria is on my todo list for H1 this year anyway, and the 3-stage jump start is just what I need to give me momentum to keep going. So what I'm thinking is to ride the Tour backward upon completion. Here are the stages:  https://thesufferfest.com/pages/tour-of-sufferlandria-2020-the-stages So I'll start with the 9th and last stage: "Grunter's Gran Fondo" - Power Station + 2. Angels + 3. Thin Air Then, backtrack, replacing workouts f...

Week 6. They say that Fear arises from uncertainty. From the Unknown growing dark in your mind. Akin to inexperience: undergoing a new adventure without preparation, doubt breathing heavily down your neck. Courage, on the other hand, would then be risk-taking? Nay. Courage is action in spite of Fear. And Courage can be mined if your shovel can take the beating. He meant Courage, and he was wrong about Fear. Read On. As for Fear, though, I do have my objections. It was back in July, before starting the structured Sufferfest training plan, that I rode The Shovel. It was the first Sufferfest video I played in several years, back since when the SUF videos were in Strava (only 90's kids will remember). Now before diving into the gory details, let's just say that The Shovel is simply two sets of 23 intervals (5sec to 1min) with inverse ratios. In other words, the harder the interval, the longer the rest and vice-versa, taking a minute in total. For example, 10...