Where the Streets Have No Name
One of the great things about road trips is the chance to explore new surroundings. Being removed from one’s home turf can often be revitalizing for both mind and body, yet some athletes can find being in the unknown somewhat challenging.
At the 2008 ABSA Cape Epic, I can remember chatting to a
young rider of great promise who had retired from the race due to his teammate
falling ill. With no way of getting back home to Cape Town, he was busy killing
time in the race village on a daily basis and looking rather bored. When I
inquired why he wasn’t doing some easy daily riding, he related how he didn’t
feel like it because he didn’t know where to ride. Basically, a sense of
adventure did not appeal to him and he felt he was better off doing nothing rather
than exploring new routes and seeing some of the daily race action. Luckily for
him, he managed to get a lift back home on the Thursday with the view to
getting back to routine and his normal training routes, but I could not help
feeling a little exasperated by the guy’s lack of adventurous spirit and
seeming indifference to anything away from the norm.
Having been a slave to the stopwatch in the distant past, I
have since come to realize that unfamiliar surroundings can make an athlete
grow in several ways. Back in in the early 2000s, I was working as a land
surveyor on South Africa’s arid West Coast during a period of our winter. We
would spend our days driving between farms in order to gain access to specific
areas requiring survey, setup our equipment and take our various readings
before packing up and moving to the next location. Our base camp was a caravan
park in Yzerfontein, a small town with little going on. Every evening was my
one opportunity to go running before dinner and the mandatory booze-up at the
local sports club. My choice of route was dictated by a desired duration and most
often consisted of running out for set amount of minutes before making an
about-turn and cruising back to the start point. I would look at watch
frequently, cursing that time seemed moving slowly. For example, if I thought I
had already gone ten minutes, you can imagine my frustration when my watch
displayed an elapsed time of 6:07 and so on.
Whilst the above approach may in some ways seem practical in
a sense of achieving desired workout duration in an unfamiliar location, it
also smacks of “going through the motions” so to speak, which is endemic among
many athletes of all abilities. The old adage of if “something becomes a chore,
give it a break” rings true here, but is not necessarily applicable in the case
of the travelling athlete. Rather it could be attributed to several things, a
few of which could be listed as follows:
- Insecurity about unfamiliar surroundings
- Lack of mind-body connection in relation to perceived time
- Overly rigid training approach
- Over or total reliance on quantifying technology
- Viewing exercise has training instead of daily movement
Given that many an amateur athlete aspires to emulate the
professionals via various forms of media, it is perhaps ironic that many elite
athletes spend extended periods away from their own familiar surroundings. This
is a necessity due to their sport being their profession, thus seeing them earn
their daily bread by competing in many a different location. It may be
difficult to imagine our heroes departing from the realm of heart rates and
power stats but that is most often the case, mainly out of necessity. They have
to adapt to a multitude of environments, effectively calling a hotel room their
base and often just going with the flow when it comes to daily training. Whilst
some athletes travel better than others, the underlying theme here is that they
have to improvise. Should this not be an aspect that the average sportsman or
woman aspire to (Note: rhetorical question intended)?
Many years ago, a former pro athlete and now esteemed author,
coach and entrepreneur related his unique travel experience after a
disappointing performance in a world championship. Instead of dwelling on his
sub-par race result, he embarked on a three-week whirlwind tour of Europe. His
strategy was to sleep on the nightly train journey to his next destination,
obtain a local map and go for a run around each city sightseeing, talking to
locals, experiencing local culture, taking photographs, visiting tourist
attractions etc. The result was a seemingly unstructured “planes, trains and automobiles”
adventure yet is a highly effective quasi-training camp, all the while
absorbing and embracing each different location free from the constraints of a
home environment. But it may be
difficult for the average amateur athlete to view on this sort of trip in
athletic terms, largely because it diverts from a set plan.
Given my thirst for adventure, I could not think of many
better forms of travel than the above example but that is my
personality. Needless to say whilst this sort of trip may be my ultimate holiday, it is not everyone’s cup of
tea. Yet getting out of one’s usual exercise surroundings has distinct
advantages and, if approached correctly, can lead to tremendous growth in
fitness as a whole.
How do we measure fitness? Conventional wisdom dictates
certain yardsticks like personal best times or power statics. If one removes the
clutter (i.e. numbers) from our minds, a true fitness test could be to go and
exercise in your desired activity without a watch, checking the exact time
before leaving. Exercise freely, on an unfamiliar route if possible, your sole
aim being to get as close to your desired duration as possible without any
markers. The fitter you get, the closer your estimated time of arrival.
This approach is something I have come to embrace over the
past few years. In fact, I cannot even imagine wearing a watch these days.
About a month ago, I was fortunate enough to be working at a three-day mountain
bike race, the venue being an enormous wine estate outside of Grabouw in the
Western Cape. Wanting to take full advantage of my surroundings before the commencing
of the massage duties, I decided to go for a 2 hour run around the farm. Seeing
as this was my first long run since the Cape Town Marathon in mid-September, I
was unsure of my abilities of perception; how close would my actual elapsed
time be compared to my desired duration (2 hours)? Seeing as my fitness is
directly related to my perception of time, this would be interesting given the
two months of no long runs post-marathon and a good indicator.
After checking the car clock upon leaving, I ran freely with
no set route, which ended up including a variety of terrain. Be it apple
orchards, vineyards, steep climbs, steeper descents or the smooth dirt roads
circling the farm, the surroundings and ensuing views were exhilarating. True
runner’s high stuff in a sense. Only towards the end of this run did begin to
wonder about the outcome of this timing test; would I be close or would I fall
short of my goal of one-hundred-and-twenty minutes? When I saw that the clock
at read 9:58am upon my return, I was jubilant to say the least. Jubilant
because when I left earlier that morning, it had read 7:57am.
The above example is
a just a snapshot of the little games that we as athletes can play. Whilst this
sort of approach can seem a little off-beat and even idiosyncratic, it
certainly keeps things fun and interesting as opposed to the more mundane and
artificial numeric parameters. You’ve just got to have the courage do it. There
is nothing wrong with a bit of disorientation.
