A year ago, I shared a blog post (Recovery While Climbing) about the May tradition where I live in Durango, Colorado that brings cycling pros, as well as just biking enthusiasts, from all over the country and beyond: The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. The origin of the bike verses train competition started with two brothers in 1971. The following year a group of 36 riders started the yearly weekend event, which has grown to a couple thousand cyclists competing in multiple events, who bring families and draw spectators, filling up our little town to overflowing into nearby towns!
Now in its 52nd year, Durango started swelling this past weekend with the cyclists who know they need some time to acclimate to altitudes between 7,000 ft to over 10,000 ft! [Note: links to more info on our 2024 IHBC can be found at bottom of post.]
So let’s get to my title, shall we? As I shared in my original post about the quest to finish my first Iron Horse, (the year I turned fifty and my first year living @ 7,000 ft!):
It is all about the training, which is all about developing endurance for a fifty-mile ride that includes 2 mountain passes above 10,000 feet!
I was committed to spin classes, customized for the cyclists who had registered for the IHBC, which usually start at various gyms in the late fall/early winter before the upcoming May event. The first instructor I had, Cindy, gave me several key phrases I have carried through the years since that have been very applicable to goal-reaching in various domains of my life.
The catch phrase that most resonated with me that I heard first from Cindy was when she was taking us on a climb in spin class, she would repeat this invaluable instruction:
To endure longer and/or steeper climbs, you must master recovery while climbing.
That means finding the pace that will allow you to slow your breathing and effort load for some recovery, while continuing – rather than stopping - to meet the uphill challenge in which you find yourself.
Practicing that concept during my IHBC training, allowed me to not only finish the grueling ride, but continues to serve me in challenges, large and small, I’ve faced since then.
Being or becoming a consistent finisher requires the development of endurance. Afterall, what significant challenge have any of us faced that wasn’t more like a mountainous marathon than a sidewalk sprint?!
The Apostle Paul understood the perfect analogy of the endurance and persistence needed to run a race, whether it is a sporting event or our life mission on the course in which we each have a lane that is uniquely ours.
...let us run with patient endurance and steady active persistence the race that is set before us, [looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith... Heb.12:1-2
Are you in an uphill climb right now in your race? Is your exhaustion, weariness tempting you to just stop and maybe get off the track?
I recently had surgery (the reason I’ve been quiet for a bit re: Perils & Pearls blog), and these past four weeks since the procedure have definitely felt like an uphill climb, with the initial days feeling like I was going up a steep mountain pass!
I have needed to tap into this concept real time: Finding the pace, on even an hourly basis, in which I can stay mentally on course with my larger purposes while also keeping my body in a place to steadily meet the immediate mission of recovery from surgery.
The blessing in the challenge for me: The surgery rendered my Type 3 giddy-up attitude null and void! It was immediately and repeatedly apparent to even my thickheadedness that I needed a lot of help – for every detail of basis daily living! My self-reliance waved the white flag in the first hour I was home from the hospital! After that surrender, it became easier, and less painful, to accept my state of need and receive the generous, thoughtful, loving care from my family, my people.
Hmm...It seems a repeatable theme in my faith journey that God uses difficult circumstances such as this surgery as governors on my gas pedal to manage my pace. (Yikes! Did I write that out loud?)
Meanwhile, I am endeavoring to see my forced rest as an opportunity to luxuriate in more reading time, reflection time, prayer and worship time than my schedule normally allows.
Hmm...I am reminded of what I have experienced to be true: Those practices are what fuels all my recoveries so I can stay on (my) course, and practice patient endurance and steady active persistence as I keep my eye on the prize: fulfilling His purpose(s) for me.
(A deep breath...back to resting now...)
I invite you to consider...
Can you put a name to the uphill climb you are in presently?
How might recovery while climbing play out for you in your current situation or season?
Is it instituting or reclaiming a few daily practices that cause your systems to slow and replenish without having to stop your forward movement?
Maybe being intentional about time spent regularly with a person or people with which you feel safe and known would facilitate your recovery while climbing?
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Blessed to play a part ~
g
Re: the 2024 IHBC in Durango: Related events will commence in the next couple of days, with the main events on Saturday and Sunday, May 25-26.
Click here for the IHBC website
Read more about the history of the IHBC here
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