Welcome to the Church of We Run and Ride. 

What follows is a sermon of sorts. And if you know anything about good sermons, the content usually gives you a little history and purpose of the topic, some information on what is true, and a call to action to go out in the world and make it happen for you and others.

The Devil and Angel within all of us

The runner and rider within you is in constant conflict. If you love running more than any other type of fitness activity, you probably may not be able to find enough time in your life to ride as well.

No matter what gender you might be, this is how the devil of tricky choices can look and sound at times.

The rider in you may feel similar about your running. When you are putting in two 70-milers on a weekend and trying to squeeze in 3 more rides a week between work and family, you’re not going to have a bunch of extra energy to go out and run a 10k.

The conflict between running and riding can breed all sorts of tension within you. It’s like that cartoon where there’s an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. The innocent little angel is saying, “You don’t have a lot of time. Let’s go for a run today.”

Meanwhile the devil on your other shoulder whispers, in a sinister voice, ‘How often do you get a 50 degree in winter. Get out there on your bike and hurt yourself. Otherwise you’ll be fat by Christmas.”

Oh, the choices can be difficult, we know. How does a multisport athlete make good choice?

Spiritual training

Religions around the world have tried to answer questions like this for years. And the sick thing is that many religions simply don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to practical matters like how to balance your training schedule. It’s not like Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount to tell you to do more hillwork. And gurus like Mahatma Ghandi did not spend a lot of time putting in base miles in their sandals. They were walking miles to deliver the truth, not get in shape for their next half-marathon. It is a rare thing indeed for our holy, wise, spiritual or political leaders to have a high VO2 max because they exercise for the love of it. Martin Luther liked his beer and Martin Luther King, Jr. reportedly had a taste for the ladies. About the only serious exerciser among the holy set might be the Holy Spirit, who seems able to really get around.

So the fact remains: the sins of the flesh are just as great a temptation for the holy highbrows as us high mileage types. It is up to us to become our own role models for balance and respect for the holy temple of our bodies.

Glimpse of nirvana

We’re all in this together of course. Those of us who run and ride are simply trying to break through the temporal world for that little piece of nirvana that lies beyond, a glimpse at enlightenment. If we happen to raise a bunch of money for the sick or poor along the way, that just brings us closer to whatever God we worship, or to secular satisfaction if we don’t.

The dilemma remains: we still face the choice of how much time to put into each activity.

Gratitude as a training tenet

Here’s a good starting point. You should be grateful for being able to run and ride at all. Because you need to remember that people with physical disabilities have to work extra hard to enjoy their respective sports. If most of us were put into the position of having to do all that extra work to get ready to work out we’d say screw it. Which is why the heightened respect for athletes with disabilities is long overdue. Because, as it turns out, these athletes really aren’t “disabled” as they have enabled themselves with far more focus than many of the rest of us.

And think about it: there’s a moral lesson in the fact that wheelchair races combine the two sports of running and riding. The choice is made sometimes. Just go with it. Stop thinking so much.

How hard is it, really, for you to run and ride? 

Recently there have been a number of disabled cyclists who have made their mark on the world, showing that the lack of an arm or leg is no reason not to ride. Illinois cyclist Joe Berenyi is a CAT 3 rider on his own merit who went to London and earned a couple medals in the Olympics. I’ve raced against Joe and seen first hand what a good bike handler and rider he really is. It makes me appreciate that whining about my bike fit or some other stupid problem is merely making excuses for a lack of gratitude and appreciation for the act of riding.

So before you turn your daily decision into a conundrum that vexes your brain, try simplifying the thought process. The Who once wrote a song called Another Tricky Day. The lyrics go like this in paraphrase:

You can’t always get it
When you really want it
You can’t always get it at all
Just because there’s space
In your life it’s a waste
To spend your time why don’t you wait for the call…

(You better get used to it…)

…This is no social crisis
Just another tricky day for you

Start by stopping waste of time

What The Who are trying to tell you is that you are probably wasting your time on a lot of activities that take away from your running and riding if you really get down to it. 4 hours of TV a night? Plenty of time to go downstairs and hit the indoor trainer for a while or go out for a 1/2 hour run in there. And if you really are time-pressed because of work or other obligations then you simply have to take what life gives you and not whine about it. That only makes things worse.

We create our own social crises by complicating our lives in ways that make time for both running and riding more difficult to accommodate. Our priorities often get overwhelmed by false comforts and slovenly habits. Replace those with constructive use of time and suddenly you find yourself able to go running and riding more.

The choices become easier to make when you’ve made adequate time and rid yourself of compensatory behaviors that give you a sense of relaxation but may not be as relaxing as you think in the long run. Stress can come from lack of involvement and accomplishment just like it can stem from pressure and over involvement. Recognizing this balance in your life is the secret to happiness and better choices about when you run and ride, and choose to do so.

But remember: this is not to encourage you to get carried away.

Is obsession the answer?

In one of John Irving’s novels, “The Hotel New Hampshire,” a wrestler dealing with struggles in life realizes it’s all about focus. “You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed,” the character says.

Well, obsession has its drawbacks. For one thing, obsession can take over your whole life. That’s not really the goal for most of us who run and ride. The goal is to achieve a healthy balance that helps us reduce stress, promote better health and weight management while allowing us to participate in fun activities and events, socialize and even brag at the water cooler once in a while. Frankly much more than that is deluding ourselves into thinking that our running and riding is much more than that.

But all those competing goals can still make for pretty tricky day, because as The Who warns us, being too busy and having too many priorities can produce a social crisis in our souls. Also remember that riding can be a real salvation to the marathoner who picks up an injury during training, and that running along with weight training can keep the cyclist from developing critical lower back and knee weaknesses, not to mention stronger bones.

Let balance enter your life

So what’s the answer? To find balance, we need to listen to both the devil and the angel within. That’s basically the premise of the symbol for yin and yang. We really are in constant tension with the dark and light side of our souls. The drive to run and ride may be darkly selfish in some ways, but the returns on investment in health and stress relief bring a sort of light into our lives.

It is now known that too much cycling can actually thin out your bones, while too much pounding from running can cause stress fractures, osteoarthritis and other injuries. So balance is critical and the aerobic benefits of both sports are complimentary.

So do yourself a favor. Print out this blog and cut out this symbol for yin and yang.

BALANCE IS THE KEY TO ALL TRAINING

Post it on your refrigerator and as you pass each day say out the word out loud: “Balance.” You’ll find your decisions about whether to run or ride that day get easier when you have that goal in mind.

AMEN!