Monday, August 25, 2008

How much do you hate to lose?

Here's a "Tip of the Week" that I needed to remind myself of...

Posted by: "Nate Llerandi" natellerandi@yahoo.com Mon Aug 25 2008

A few weeks back, I wrote about Cadel Evans riding not to lose the Tour and, by doing so, he lost it. In a similar vein, our mindset toward racing is every bit as important to our successes and shortcomings as how we race. If not more so. Racing not to lose is how one racesour mindset might be "I love to win." And this is great. To be clear, "winning" to me is not necessarily defined as crossing the finish line first. Certainly, for some it is. Winning can be the act of setting a PR at a given race or over a given distance. Or it can mean beating a particular individual who normally beats you. Or it could simply be completing a particular distance of race for the first time. The definition of winning can be far-reaching. When someone says to me "I love to win", my immediate follow-on question is this: "OK, but how much do you hate to lose?" To me, hating to lose is more important than loving to win. Those who hate to lose seem to extract more out of themselves and their performances than those who either have not contemplated this aspect of preparation or who instead just focus on the "winning" side of things. If you hate to lose, you tend to bloody your nose as you try to smash through your limitations and barriers. Sometimes, you are an effective battering ram and you do smash those barriers to pieces. In any event, you are constantly trying to be the absolute best you can be. I do not equate the love of winning with the hatred of losing. They are two different things, intertwined but separate. So, I guess this week's Tip boils down to this. Have you asked yourself how much you hate to lose? If not, you should. Whatever your answer, you will learn something about yourself and, hopefully, be able to apply something new to your racing experiences. Happy Training, Nate Llerandi
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Thursday, August 7, 2008

Olmstead, flats, and Cougars

Lately, I've been flatting alot. One would think that 50lbs would keep the pinchies away. dunno...

So today, I'm getting ready for a lap on Olmstead, and there's this guy parked next to me. He starts up with "Are ya 'fraid of cougars?" Nope. "You should be," he says, "why, I wouldn't go out there without at least a .38" This went on and on as I was gearing up to go, trying to convince me that I was in mortal danger. His parting words were something like, "If yer truck's still here tomorrow, I'll notify the authorities." "Thanks," I said, and rode off.

Now... it wasn't too far along that I feel something on my arm, and look down to see a wasp planting his stinger in me. Good thing I'm not allergic. Though I was cruising along too fast for that to be going on, but there he was. Got me good before I could get stopped.

Then came the best part... A double flat on the same rock. Since i'm about 1/2 to 3/4 the way around, there's no easy way back. I decided to backtrack a bit and get out to the road that runs through the place. At this point, I started thinking about that dude back at the truck telling me I would probably die out here. I ended up walking about 5 miles back to the truck, pushing my bike with both tires flat, thinking about all this crazy stuff and how my girlfriend would be pleased.

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