A Knight To Be

It had never occurred to me to consider what this Cloud was all about. Now I know. It's not about climbing above the clouds, or other astral aspirations. It's not about being high, or similar altitude-related (or dopamine) ambitions. It's certainly not about anything light and soft that carelessly floats where the wind might randomly blow. No, none of those. It's about Winter. It's about Pain and Misery and Agony. It's about Dedication and Consistency and Determination. It's about Commitment and Single-Minded Focus. It is Winter. Dark and cold. The Cloud is a lightning-charged, rain-loaded, heavy cumulonimbus. The sort that rides in slow from the sea, so massive that light cannot penetrate to its base. Looming darkness, low and steady, thunder rumbling far in the distance, as if trying to catch up with the floating behemoth. As it clears past the shoreline, the floodgates open, and rain falls in thick sheets, seeming to flow from an infinite well. The Keepe...

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 ...

Just came off the bike after doing " Primers ". This drill "revs up the engine," so to speak by dishing out 4x 3 minutes intervals of around FTP, then 3 low effort sprints. I vaguely remember from doing this before the previous Full Frontal 4DP Test that these efforts we a bit on the demanding side of things. Spinning 90rpm at FTP, or just above, for 3 minutes and thinking, "this isn't as easy as it should be... I need 5 minutes at almost 100 Watts more tomorrow!" I attribute this to the very light days prior: no ride yesterday (just some Yoga) and a 30min Recovery Ride the day before. So legs are a bit "rusty" to the extent that a coat of oxidization only a couple of days old can blossom. Tomorrow is going to be a blast. I went through the Mental Toughness Program pre-event work, have my TO-DO for today and tomorrow and getting things in place. For instance, making sure to supplement and eat/drink enough today, even though it's ...

6 Days to go. Last kilometer. La Flamme Rouge. I've gone under the kite, as Carlton Kirby might say. Into the final rest week of the 12-week Sufferfest Training Plan I go. As a reminder, this is the General Cycling Plan, Advanced Level, Indoor Only, VO2 focus, with all the toppings: Strength, Yoga, and Mental Toughness. At this point, it's interesting to look at the power zone durations for the span of the plan thus far: 4.3% spent in Zone 5, and another 1.6% in Zone 6 - and since there were not too many sprints in this plan, let's assume that the NM+AC work is there to support MAP development. We combine these two figures to ~6% (3.5hrs). I'm very curious to see the impact this will have on the upcoming 4DP Full Frontal Test. Meanwhile, this rest week is a blessing. I'm utterly exhausted. To illustrate a point, last night, I rode the 90min Endurance+ ride, which generally puts me in a hazy comatose state. This time it was so challenging that I ...

Week 10. 14 days to go. It's when you're singing along, humming to the tunes on "It Seemed Like Thin Air" that you know you've been doing this for a while. As the 40-minute climb draws to an end, "Don't Talk To Me" plays loud over the TV speakers. Louder than the 20" metal-bladed fan, spinning at full blast, that's for sure. My wife, who had just come back home from work, gets the message — no exchange of words necessary. The puddle of Sufferlandrian Holy Water beneath me extracts a nose scrunch, though. I keep an eye on the clock because I'll be doing the cooldown on the MTB on the way to fetch the kids from school. It was close this time. I lost electricity twice during the session. Luckily, we have a backup diesel generator to keep everything working while the main feed from the electric company is down - which happens more often than not these days. It can be because of the rain, a fire, or some maintenance work - but you'l...

Week 8, 26 days to go. I get that tingling feeling from time to time. No, it's not the beta-alanine OD, although that's fun too. It's when you KNOW that you can go harder than the workout demands of you. It's that feeling of restrained, controlled patience. The sensation of having more to give, even though you don't need to. And when you get that feeling in "A Very Dark Place," then you know you've come a long way. It also hints that a Full Frontal Test is imminent for raising that bar once again for renewed, fresh, Suffering. The Sufferfest - A Very Dark Place - Trailer from The Sufferfest on Vimeo . The value of repeating a challenging workout on the same plan cycle is immense. The comparison, at least in RPE, is invaluable. I could go technical and compare in detail how the two repetitions of A Very Dark Place differ. I did that for The Shovel here: https://suffer.tavor.io/2019/10/mining-courage.html The bottom line is that this ti...

End of Week 7 In 34 days, I'll wave to you all from the peak of Mt. Sufferlandria. You won't see me, of course, as looking up towards the summit is a sure way to burn your eyes blind with the falling lava snow. I'm heading into a rest week now, having finished another 3-week block of the Advanced Sufferfest Training Plan. These past few days were rather enjoyable if you also consider fun to be constant fatigue, sore muscles, burning sensations, and pain as an unrelenting companion. In dread of losing form and tolerance during the rest week, I'm adding a spoonful of this stuff to every glass of water: Tangy, but a Sufferlandrian delicacy on par with Real-Pagne. This past week, as you may recall, crept upon the heels of ISLTA and some strength work. It then continued with " 14 Vice Grips " - a VO2Max session of 14 intervals ranging from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. These get progressively longer, then shorter in two sets of seven intervals: 14 Vic...

Week 5 When I first started with The Sufferfest Training Plan, I had to pay attention to planning the upcoming weeks carefully. Going from Xert, which is "dynamic," meaning you can find the right workout for your goal on any given day, SUF Plans are pre-fixed. Let's dwell on that for a moment: Pre-fixed training plans are a "given." You get the workout schedule for the next ~12 weeks and follow it. Sick child? Holiday? Business trip? Tough luck. Yes, life always gets in the way, but you more or less have to make up for missed sessions somehow. The Sufferfest makes it easy to figure out what to do in such a case: https://thesufferfest.com/blogs/training-resources/skip-a-workout-dont-panic . But as a whole, you're committed and inflexible. It's the same with training plans on Zwift and Today's Plan. Zwift will give you a short window to complete workouts, but if you miss the train, you're in trouble. Dynamic/Flexible training pla...

As the burning haze engulfed me, blurring my vision and scorching my lungs, I recalled the mystical counterspell: "You. Can. Do. This." It was still more than forty-five minutes to the end of the session, and my inner thighs began to cramp up. I don't remember if this was on Mt. Sufferlandria, Mt. apocalypse, or some other Col du-know, but I hurt, and I had to keep going. I knew that with these cramps - pure physical pain, almost mechanical, like someone or something literally and visibly pulling ligaments and muscle - I had to go on. To Stop is to Die. No soft-pedaling, no taking-it-easy. Just keep pushing. 1:52:34 elapsed... cramps are gone, but they'll be back, I know they will. It Seemed Like Thin Air is a Sufferfest video that has "tempo" climbs at various lengths. The shortest is 8 minutes, the longest is, um, 40 minutes. Now "tempo" is a relative thing. Yes, it can be constrained in Power Zones or HR zones, but when you...

You. Can. Do. This. The final words on the "Positive Self-Talk" MTP session (The Sufferfect Mental Training Program). It's not the first time I've completed this little exercise, and the value keeps coming back with interest. In this session, you'll learn about the types of self-talk: Motivational: "you can do this!" Instructional: "Keep spinning those legs at 100rpm." Reward: "You did it, you crazy SOaB." And get some pointers on how to listen to your self-talk and direct it to the Positive, so the outcome is in your favor. If you've ever pushed hard enough, you know it works. A few months ago, I decided it was time to ride the Uber pretzel on Zwift .  I ventured outside the Torture Chamber and set up a mobile Pain Infliction Unit outside on my porch. T'was a lovely day, and I felt oddly positive. 4 hours later, and rather loudly, while shredding chamois up the Alpe du Zwift's +10% grades, a...

A couple of days ago, we reviewed the first two weeks of the Journey. Yesterday was a Rest Day flavored with some Yoga and the MTP session named "Relaxing to Recover." It's rather enjoyable. About 20 minutes in which you flow through a contraction-relaxation routine from head to toe. Some background music adds a lot, and, if you are lucky enough to find 25 minutes of uninterrupted stillness (i.e., no kids screaming in the background that they don't want to take a shower, no SO on the phone, no doors opening and closing, no people coming in and out because your torture chamber also happens to be their playroom...etc) then it's wonderfully meditating. Today is just a Strength session with a recovery spin — nothing to write home about. So instead, let's paint the background picture with details of the torture chamber set up: Trainer : Tacx Neo (1st. Gen) Smart as they get. This trainer is by far the best thing I've spent money on this decade, ...

This is no ordinary post. As you may learn, Couchlandrian Tendencies are a deadly omnipresent danger. We can fall prey to laziness, slackery, oh and donuts, with ease. So, as easy as it could have been to abandon a 0-view blog about my personal experience on the Quest, I have learned and applied mental strength. You see, The Sufferfest has you working on all fronts: cycling (duh), strength, maintenance (Yoga), and Mental.  The last Mental Training workout I completed had a drill about forming habits that support the Quest. Keeping the focus on the "Why." Using a simple set of daily reminders and actions creates consistency. For me, and you, the fruit of my actions, to support my Quest, is what you're reading now. So while this is just another post, it is the first post written with a purpose that paves the Journey. Right, so what have you missed? Today I completed the first two weeks of the SUF training plan. To recap, my plan is: 12 weeks Adva...