It Doesn’t Get Any Easier, You Just Get Better

My legs were screaming, my heart and lungs exploding out of my chest.  I slowly passed a guy sitting on the pavement, surrendered.  Another woman sat sobbing in the grass on the side of the road.

The hill pitched up mercilessly, 13%, then up to a 15% grade. There was no end to it, every hairpin turn upward revealed more hill, more punishment. 

I was racing in the regional Gran Fondo Championships, a grueling 62 mile bike race with long, steep mountain climbs.  I did the event the year prior and blew up halfway through.  My fitness wasn’t there, and I resolved to come back and get redemption.

“If this is what redemption feels like, I’m not sure I want any… “.

 

Level Up

The great American cyclist Greg Lemond is known for a quote that’s still popular in the cycling community.

“It doesn’t get any easier, you just get faster”

For bike racing, a sport famous for taking it’s participants to arguably deeper levels of physical suffering for longer periods of time than any other, it’s a perfect quote.

Training hard and putting in long hours on the bike definitely helps you get faster.  But as soon as you’re in a race, no matter how fast you are, you’re probably going to suffer just as much as you did last time.

Or more.  There’s always someone faster than you.

I did a post a while back that discussed stress and anxiety.  In researching the post, I was fascinated by the concept of “optimal anxiety”.

The idea being that we need some stress and anxiety in our lives to stay productive, to keep the ship afloat.  A life of no challenges and total comfort is a sure death sentence for the body and brain. 

Starting from nothing, increasing levels of stress and anxiety are actually beneficial to help us learn and accomplish things. 

But when levels of stress and anxiety become too high performance starts to decrease, according to the Yerkes-Dodson Law.  Extended stays in these high levels of anxiety have detrimental effects on physical and mental health. 

I might have just described the relationship that most folks have with their W2 job.

So if we’ve established that we have to keep a certain level of stress in our lives to prevent mental and physical atrophy, then to a certain degree life doesn’t get any easier.

Sorry to break the news, but you’re going to have continual stress and anxiety in your life.  Yeah, I’m a palm reader.

But here’s the thing.  You get better.  As you keep attacking problems and having “optimal anxiety” in your life, you’re going to level up.  It won’t get easier, you’ll just be tackling harder problems, with more experience to draw on.

And then new problems will fall in your lap.  And round and round it goes.

Just like the cyclist who gets faster.  He or she then enters new races with faster competitors.  It doesn’t get any easier in those races, they suffer just as much.  They’re just going faster.

In the end, if a competitor who’s really trying their best has anything left at the finish line they didn’t push hard enough.

Unlike the perception of many, we FIRE proponents do not wish to retire to a life on the beach with a drink in hand.  Actually I don’t know a single FIRE blogger striving for that.

We wish to retire from our W2 careers (assuming we don’t like them anymore) to do work that’s more meaningful and fulfilling.  And that work will still bring stress and anxiety at times.  As long as the stress is kept at optimal levels, it’s a good thing.

There will be new challenges to solve and skills to learn.  And to be honest it won’t get any easier, but if all goes as planned we’ll just get better.

 

The Race

I came to the race that second year fit, prepared.  I put the work in to prep, months of it. 

Yet during that last hill, that last torturous climb, I almost mentally broke.  The pain was excruciating.  I went as deep as I’d ever gone into what we call the “pain cave”. 

My brain interpreted that new level of pain as failure.

“This hurts too much, I can’t be doing well…”

I was already projecting ahead before it was even over.

“Are you really going to come back again next year after this disappointment?”

I laid in the grass at the finish party, completely empty.  Slowly sipping my free beer and eating a Clif Bar, fully drained and a bit stunned.  I just stared at the sky.

Then my buddy came over with a big smile on his face.

“Congrats dude, you came in 7th!”.

Seventh place out of 88 racers.  I had never placed so high in a race in my life.

It doesn’t get any easier, you just get better.