L'Eroica Dreams

Training for L’Eroica is occupying much of my interests, or fears, these days. Though six months away, everything I can glean about the ride tells me that my legs and every other part of me must be ready for a long, difficult day in the saddle.

I’ve ridden centuries before. I’ve been put to the test on challenging climbs. My first significant one came in 1985 and was the excuse for my first visit to Europe. The Alpenbrevet went 160K over three mountain passes including one with 15K of cobblestones on the descent. (Current routes are different than when I rode it.) I also rode the 1988 Assault on Mt. Mitchell, a ridiculously difficult century ride that sounded good on paper, but was murderous. But, scores of kilometers of strade bianchi has me spooked. What to do?

Distract myself. That is really the reason behind the headline. You see it at the health club, you see it among snowboarders, you see it in riders cruising the bike paths around town. Everyone seems to be plugged in to their own personal noise machine.

We can always make the argument that music, whatever the genre or style, is motivating or soothing or inspirational. It may be and often is. What we really gain from these earbuds or headphones is a transport to some other place where the burning in the thighs and the labored breathing don’t exist. That’s for the world of old-school training.

Although my wife and I were hold outs for an iPod, the moment we got one, we used it primarily for our trips to the health club. It wasn’t long after that an iPhone was in my pocket and we the both could be plugged in. I created a playlist of rock and roll music that I thought would be sufficiently noisy and hard-driving enough to keep us going at high RPMs.

That playlist was played to death, but we never seemed to mind because it wasn’t really music we were enjoying. We were using the beats and the bass lines to drive our legs. Billy Idol might have been dancing with himself, but we were trying to dance on the pedals.

Then, by sheer accident or forgetfulness, I left the iPhone at home and had to go it alone. The Clash and The Stones were not there to help me. And, I posted just as good a training effort on the stationary bike as ever. That’s when I realized that the music was only a distraction, so why not have more variety in my distractions? How about a little opera to go along with “Sympathy for the Devil?” Why not let Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, “Eroica,” help me visualize the roads of Tuscany, with the dappled sunlight and shining gravel?

And, that’s where I have ended up. I may put together other playlists including some with Billy Idol and The Clash. But, I’m just as likely to let Pandora do the work from Radio Opera.  Or, just as compelling would be entire symphonies, which often take us from slow warm up adagios to excited interval allegros and back to a warm down andante.