Goals and objectives. We all have them and we need them to improve, but what is the value of repeating the same goal and objective? This thought occurred to me as I was coming down one of the best trails I've ridden in some time, Nail Driver and Deer Crest at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah. I've been lucky enough to spend the past few days at the Silver Baron Lodge riding bikes and checking out some of the newest cycling gear. Known as Press Camp, it's three days of morning meetings, afternoon rides and great dinners. Yes, it's hard work, and I appreciate your sympathy. Back to goals and objectives, it occurred to me that for many years I've been chasing roughly the same athletic goals and objectives, and I think there are many that do the same. For me, it was chasing distance and climbing. With a history in long distance triathlon (14 IM's in 5 years) I got into a mindset that the farther I went the better. Even when I stepped away from triathlon, that mentality followed me. How far could I ride, run or paddle, how far back did those trails go, how epic is it? My goals were still distance oriented, I'd only changed my mode of transport. I'd get back from a mountain or road ride and look at my total miles and elevation like a slave to the metrics. I'd check the surf and if was decent, I'd still convince myself to stay in the harbor to paddle for more miles. I was what I now refer to as Mileage Man. On occasion I would bust out of the rut and have a blast, vowing every time not to get sucked back into my mileage mindset. Each time failed, but now, now I think I've had a breakthrough.
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| Deer Valley trails and an awesome bike |
Here at Deer Valley I was presented with the opportunity to take a chair lift up, ride awesome trails with some of the best bikes, I took it. I took it mostly because my legs were thrashed from my three races in three weekends (all distance oriented). I was doing the unthinkable, descending more than I climbed and in essence not "earning my turns" as they say in the ski world. But I had FUN. Not just some fun, but FUN. I was pushed to ride better, more technically and more aggressively than I have in the past. Having a BMX background (riding from ages 6 to 9), some of it came back. Now by no means was I "killing or shredding it", but I was feeling a sense of flow and rhythm that I'd only fleetingly experienced in the past few years.
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| Mileage Man, not having what most would call "fun". Photo: C. Johnson |
So what I couldn't figure out is why is that though I love that sense of flow and rhythm, in any sport, do I continually default to Mileage Man? For me I think it's two things: familiarity and ease of use. Familiarity is like a rut, you do it on auto pilot. Your brain knows what it's in for and simply moves you in that direction. Ease of use means that it is easier to get out your door on a road bike or run and cover as many miles as you can than it is to load bikes/skis/boards, drive to the trail/resort/beach, hope the conditions are good and have fun. Surfing and skiing are especially condition dependent. I would bet that this year, skiing had a lot less "stoke" to it than last year. But what I'm coming around to is the fact that there is a different payoff to taking on those logistics, and different goals and objectives to be had.
Mileage Man can quantify his activities and create specific goals. Miles and elevation are recordable so you can look back at your GPS device and say, "I paddled this many miles" or "I climbed this many feet of elevation". These are clear metrics to measure against. Mileage Man can impress others with his Strave KOM's (google Strava if you don't know what it is) and weekly training logs. For Flow Man, (trail riding/skiing,surfing/sup'ing, etc) it's more "fun" based. You can't quantify how much fun you had and if you had more fun than the last time you rode that trail. Flow Man can say "that was sick" or "I'm stoked!" and it ends there. He won't pull up a file that measures his stoke to show you how much more stoked he was than the last time he rode that trail. His goal is for that moment only. Now there are some specific goals for Flow Man. Things like nailing a particular part of the trail, landing a jump on skis or cutting a bigger hack on a wave, but again, there are no watches or GPS units to record data. Plus, the specific goal is folded into the overall goal of achieving more flow. That said, I have been in such depleted states that I experience a flow due to sheer exhaustion and delirium. When I was racing a 24 hour ski race two year ago I was so tired that when the sun was coming up and shining through the aspen trees, I thought "this is what Peyote must be like". I've also been lucky to have days when from the start my pedal stroke or run stride was perfect and fluid. So, it's a different type of flow in endurance events, but is more fleeting, and rarely the goal.
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Flow Man, having fun, workin' it, workin' it.
Photo: Ale DiLullo/Cannondale |
So with each run I let Flow Man come out more. I just rode the bike downhill as fun as I could. Not fast, fun. My only thought was, "how fun can I ride this trail?" I cautiously caught some air when I felt safe, drove into corners that I felt confident in and pushed myself in way that rewarded flow, not necessarily speed, but rhythm and flow. At times I felt super confident and other times I was reminded that the majority of my riding has been on the road.
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| Milo and his dad feeling the flow on the pump track |
Last night I watched a kid was almost three years old whip around a pump track on a strider bike (kids bike with no pedals). His father is a pro freeride mountain biker and built the track in his backyard for training This kid was pushing his bike up and down the jumps and through the turns, all with a big smile on his face. He has already felt FLOW, it is now and will forever be a part of him. It was inspiring to watch this little kid just get out there for fun. He doesn't know what GPS is, how many feet of elevation he gained or what his speed was, but he had the most fun of anyone out there.
