Excerpt: A THIN LINE

(author unknown (at least to me))

I know the symptoms just as well as I know the adjectives-burning
thighs, cramping calves, aching knees, screaming lungs, and side
stitches so sharp I can't inhale. And all this on top of nagging back
pain and that nasty stinger that pops up between my shoulder blades on
occasion the last few years.



Sometimes it doesn't hurt too badly, like when I have to dig just a
little. Maybe I've got to pull through at the front of a fast paceline,
the effort's intense, but after a few seconds the next guy pulls through
and everything's okay. Or the hill is steep but short. Other times, it's
the duration, not the intensity that makes the pain so bad, like a huge
headwind that beats down every bit of morale I ever thought of and I've
still got 10 miles to go.



Or I curse myself as I cannot answer another rider's move even though
I'm drooling and blacking out from the effort. Or the group disappears
yard by yard up the road as my legs simply refuse to work any harder.



Why do I subject myself to this kind of suffering? Why do I ride when
my legs are cement and I feel like crap? Or plan my entire Wednesday so
I'll be at my strongest in order to suffer like a dog trying to hang
with the Hammerheads? Why did I strap on a brace and go riding 10 days
after I broke my collarbone?



There's something completely different about pain I choose to subject
myself to. I do, after all, get to hold that internal debate about when
enough is enough. And of course, Darwin teaches only the strong survive.
I don't quite think this theory holds up in our coddled society, but I
haven't entirely given up on it either. I do know that I remain enamored
with growing stronger and faster, even though I can't figure out how all
the suffering this entails benefits me one whit otherwise.



Except that hard rides provide frequent, powerful reminders of one of
the great lessons humanity offers-that the fine line between pain and
pleasure is very thin indeed, and one cannot truly know one extreme
without knowing the other equally well.