Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Different is not better or worse, it's different.

Two interesting pieces I have read on twitter in the last 24 hours have ‘spoken’ to me. I would like to share.

1. a blogger commented on her many blog drafts she hasn’t posted, (I have quite the stash)and the post she felt compelled to put out was about comparing her dream body to her real body.  http://bit.ly/NbWhNo

2. a blogger seemingly outraged by the physical differences between men’s and women’s course sizes, jump heights and venues etcetera at the Sochi Olympics, and interpreted this as a slight against women’s athletic prowess  http://slate.me/1felpzi

During the Februarys of the last few years, I give a lot of thought as to how to get more women to join the Wild Bettys. Not coincidently, also in February, my training steps up for the beginning of the race season, and I think a lot about how well I’m going to do. A loud thought that came to me after reading these articles was:

WE ARE DIFFERENT AND NEED TO STOP COMPARING OURSELVES AND BE THE BEST WE CAN BE

Wild Bettys is a club/team whose mandate is to nurture new women riders/racers and help them excel to be their best. To be their best so that they can confidently ride with the boys, if they want to, but ultimately to be their best so they can ride with confidence and appreciate this wonderful world on a bicycle and not need a paved road to do so.To show women that when they do ride with the boys and have fun it is because everyone is happily compromising a little. Men may slow down a bit and women may work a little harder but we can share the group ride together.

Two big things are just two months away;

       1. Wild Bettys’ Sign-ups and Socials and the beginning of our weekly rides

       2. Joberg2C, my ‘big event’ for 2014

My training these days has been at the new  Steve Neal Performance Training Centre where I ride my trainer with power workouts specifically prescribed for me. These workouts are based on my own test results, but now instead of in my basement I am riding alongside other riders doing their own workout, with their own wattage parameters.

Hey, I’m a competitive personality and yes, I look at those numbers as they are projected up on the screen in front of us. Just briefly cuz I’m working hard, but long enough to know that realistically there is no way that I can physically compete with the men. Their power is just so vastly different, so much greater than mine, that when they work on a moving bicycle they are going to go farther faster, period.

I shouldn’t even dream of keeping up with men. 

WE ARE DIFFERENT

My persistent worry, as I train for this 900km 9-day stage race, is that I won’t make the cutoff times. I know I need to push myself to the limit. I know my teammate has to compromise his speed so we will ride together. I can only do my best, and I must be positive but realistic about what my best can be. A point-to-point race cannot have different courses for men and women riders. Women riders will need to work harder to make the cutoff times. The faster men will have more time to recover before the next day starts but we all get to experience the event.

I need to keep my goals realistic: work hard and consistently and only compare the me today to the me yesterday, so that I can BE THE BEST THAT I CAN BE TOMORROW.

 

Ride On!

Melinda

 

 

 

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