When no one is watching

I ride a bike pretty frequently, for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes I am "in training" for a particular event. At times like now, I am not. The next race I have entered into (which I am really looking forward to) is not until mid March.

Most of my riding I do alone. I occasionally catch up with mates for a mountain bike ride, or join a group road ride, but usually I am more than happy to head out by myself.

So last night, not in training, and with no one watching, I hurt myself on my bike more than I can remember doing. When I say hurt, I don't mean that I fell off, I mean I went into real threshold training/VO2 Max type stuff. I decided I would do intervals that work a bit like this: 5 min at 80% effort, straight into 1 minute at 100%, then 1 minute recovery, then straight back into 5 minutes at 80%. Repeat until you cannot move!

And I did- I focused, I didn't ease up on the 100% effort at 45 seconds, I went for one more set when I felt like absolute rubbish. I almost passed out.

Then I cruised home. As the lactic acid slowly moved through my legs, I felt wonderful because I did something that meant nothing to anyone except me. No fanfare, no award, no bragging rights, no expectations.

They say that to find out what it is that you truly enjoy about your work (or perhaps your life), reflect on what you do when you have no one expecting anything from you, when you have time, when you do not have time limitations, when your not considering how it will look to others, when no one is watching.

It's a worthwhile reflection to have.