Hard Stuff is Supposed to be Hard

I am an adventure geek. I love following stories of racing. I love racers.

At my core, I'm a way overcompetitive kid that wants to win at everything. I am a decent athlete, but I've never been so natural that anything upper level has been easy - I flamed out of college soccer, and am a decidedly mid-pack mountain bike racer and runner.

I just typed that I'm fine with that, but, really, I'm not. I want to be fast, I want to be skinny, I want to dominate. Low goals, I know.

In pursuit of these goals, I have done intervals, turned myself inside out on group rides and practice races, and out-sprinted guys and gals for 10th place. I don't screw around.

In light of this, it probably isn't terribly surprising that videos like this drive me crazy.



Geoff Roes is a total badass. He's won a ton of 100 milers, and last year broke the course record at Western States 100 - one of the most competitive 100 milers in the world.

He says he doesn't really "train" like us mere mortals, he just goes out and runs, every day, up and down mountains.

I wish I could be this Zen. Reasonably decent performances, for me, require effort. I don't always want to run. I don't always want to go out and run for hours. I don't want to get down with Fran, or Tabatas, or go out and practice perfect form on corners on my mountain bike.

And I have a hard time believing that even the most "Zen" of elites never have bad days. Athletic performance is way more like digging a ditch than it is like meditation - and I wish these faux-zen athletes would just admit it.

Hard things are hard, no matter how much you enjoy the end goal. You might love the effort, you might appreciate the process to the fullest extent possible, but that doesn't make pinning your heart rate at 189 for 5 minutes going up a hill "fun" like eating pizza is fun.

I think that elites like Geoff who claim to not care about competitiveness on a day to day level are willfully ignorant of their true state: They care so much about the end result that the day to day slog becomes pleasurable.