Eoin McCarthy - legs above - will ride for the Terra Footwear team in Belgium during the coming season. He has spent the winter break training to get stronger for that challenge and also reflecting on what he loves the bike and how lucky he feels to be full time on the sport.
It’s 8am and the horrible sound of the iPhone alarm wakes me from my beauty sleep. Another day of training lies ahead.
As I lay there, silently praying for my body to feel recovered from the previous day’s efforts, I listen to the familiar sound of wind and rain trying its best to batter through my bedroom window. It’s just a regular morning if you live in Ireland.
The little devilish thoughts or excuses seem to form an orderly queue. Too wet! Too cold? Too windy! Too tired? Go back to bed for another hour or so. And so on, and so on…
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Then comes the positivity. This queue is a lot shorter and seems to speak so much more sense. “It’s not that bad, just get on with it” and “Man up”. Or my personal favourite: “Time for a cement milkshake, harden up.“
After all, I’m going to have to race in the rain too.
I’ve learnt to ignore the devilish thoughts to the point that they rarely enter my mind anymore.
The one thing I always ask myself is why I set that alarm in the first place. I must admit, it’s not a very pleasant feeling waking up to such weather conditions or to aching muscles.
But it never seems to stop me getting myself out of the bed and getting to work. Sometimes you’ve got to ask yourself :“What do I want now?” Or more importantly: “What do I want most?”.
As I rode over the Vee today, on some of my favourite roads and with the much welcomed winter sun on my back, I yet again realised how lucky I am.
I’m in a position that I've put myself in; through working hard.
There are no shortcuts in cycling. And there’s no doubt I've worked, suffered and sacrificed a lot to be given the opportunity to ride my bike full time.
I don't take anything for granted and I’m willing to put in the training required.
Thankfully I have no major problems in life.
But if I did, they’d be resolved by thinking – and talking - to myself out on the bike pounding the roads.
I do all my thinking behind the bars. I make all my decisions staring at that little Garmin screen while pushing the pedals a little harder. I pour all my thoughts onto the road ahead of me, and ride over them.
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The freedom that cycling provides is incredible. When I’m out riding my bike for anything to up five hours, I do a lot of thinking; mostly about things that may never cross your mind while sitting at home.
It’s like taking a detox from the world. Suddenly, from that moment you roll out of your door, it’s just you, your bike and the roads.
I mostly train on my own. It's how I seem to work best. There's nobody to distract me from the task at hand.
And while I'm out on the roads pushing on the pedals, nobody can come into my bubble and disrupt my thoughts. In saying that, I love to train with my brothers, friends and team mates. There’s only a certain amount of time in which you can talk to yourself, of course!
You become in tune with yourself through the sport.
There’s a certain selfishness involved at times. There may be days when you have to say “no” to people asking you to go out, or to go shopping. That even happens on recovery days when you have to stay focussed on the purpose of the day; recovering, staying off your feet.
There’s no doubt it can be difficult, but the sense of satisfaction is incredible. Indescribable. That feeling on a race day’s evening after a savage effort when every step of the staircase is burning your muscles like crazy. We are strange creatures us cyclists.
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Cycling is such a complex sport though; and there’s so much more to it than just riding your bike. Cycling teaches you about life. It teaches you discipline, sacrifice, dedication, focus; how your body works and responds.
It schools you in the ways your body adapts to such physical exertions. It teaches you about the world and the different cultures in it.
It shows that when you work hard for something you can make it happen.
And most importantly, it teaches you about the ups and downs; the highs and lows that life will throw in your face.
However hard it may be, I wouldn’t change it. I love what I do. I love life behind bars.
Thanks for reading
Eoin
Twitter: @Eoin_McCarthy
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