Win! Copies of The Sufferfest’s ‘A Very Dark Place’
The Sufferfest training videos are the best indoor cycling workouts out there. Bar none. They will help you become a lean, mean cycling suffering machine. And In the Saddle is very pleased to offer you the chance to win a copy of their latest instalment A Very Dark Place every week throughout October.
But we’re not just going to hand these bad boys out willy nilly. We want to know you’ll treat A Very Dark place with the seriousness it demands and you’re going to be committed to the suffering…
The Sufferfest’s A Very Dark Place: Gilbert seems to be calling your commitment to suffering into question. See the review of the video here.
So for Week 1 of The Oktoberfest we want to know the recipient of A Very Dark Place really needs it. So give us the details of your most humiliating defeat, the performance that screamed to the world ‘loser!’. The time you were dropped before you barely had a chance to clip in. When you attacked the bunch only to be left out to dry 50m off the front, before being unceremoniously swept up and spat out the back. When you went out with your training buddies for a ride and got dropped on every climb. Don’t be shy and entertain us with your failures. Turning losers into winners is what The Sufferfest is all about.
Just post your tales of woe in the comments section below, or email them to inthesaddleblog@gmail.com, before the end of Monday 10th October. Sufferlandrian Head Coach David McQuillen will pick the biggest loser as the winner, and we’ll publish a selection of the most amusing contributions.
12 Comments
Marco Mannes
October 3, 2011It was an amateur race, after a tough pavé section there was this climb. Not to high, so peloton rode this on the limit. I was hanging on, for minutes thought I was going fine… Then came an attack, my heart rate starting to increase very fast. “I am on the wheel, stay here, only a few meters, you will get it”… Heart rate about 200bpm, starting to think about having a heart attack, legs on fire… The peloton didn’t care and went away… I had to finish this race alone, only with my losers thoughts, legs and heart. It was really “a very dark place”.
Gerry Antman
October 3, 2011I do triathlons, and cycling is my strength and am usually in the top 5% of finishers off the bike. That being said at a late August triathlon, the bike was a complete struggle. From the second I got on the bike, my legs were tired, sore and I couldn’t even get out of saddle to get some extra push because my legs just couldn’t do it. I was getting passed by people who had no business passing me. I then drank too much on the bike and felt like vomitting for the first 4 km of the run but that is another story.
Sigh
wayne pedranti
October 3, 2011There is no greater suffering than to be humiliated. My worse humiliation happened long before I learned about the pleasure of Sufferfest. The race was held on the Laguna Seca Raceway in California. The morning of the race was calm. It had all the indications that it would be a nice day of racing, but as the race time approached, the winds picked up. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. You see I had never suffered in my training before, but I would soon learn what tru suffering and humiliation was.
If you know anything about this course, you would know that it begins with a a short, steep climb. This is followed by a twisty drop affectionately referred to as the Corkscrew. This was to be done no less than 20 times on the day. I never saw it coming. Some idiot attacked on the very first climb, and the whole group responded. I was not prepared. I was dropped on the first climb. No big deal I thought. I would just catch them on the descent and the back stretch of the course. So I thought. Remember the wind? Yes, the back stretch consisted of over a mile of head wind. It was awful. I could never catch the group. For every lap, I dropped further and further behind. It was a miracle that I finished on the same lap, but not by much.
I vowed to never let this happen again. That is why I do my suffering in the torture chamber now.
Kris Fleming
October 3, 2011It was my first road race 2 years ago. I had spent the winter working on the “busy adult” training plan by a certain training guru. I was feeling pretty good and prepared. It was a cold March morning and I was kitted up, warmed up and pumped up to race. Whistle blew and most of us fumbled our pedals, so I wasn’t overly concerned. Was mid-back pack by the time we were approaching turn 2. By the start of turn 3, I had pack-slid to the rear and before turn 4 was spit out the back. I put my head down and went as hard as I could as my body and mind hit the boiling point. The pack lapped me twice in the remaining 14 laps of the mile circuit course. During my loneliness, I went to alot of dark places, even considering selling all my gear and finding a sport more fitting. The event photog took a shot of me that still to this day makes me hot and uncomfortable. Brim of my cap flipped up, mouth agape, dead look in my eyes, jersey almost fully unzipped despite the 40f degree weather, face a strange shade of red and my body bent and contorted over the bike from the discomfort of the effort. That day I suffered hard, but it has only made me stronger.
Mike Hayward
October 3, 2011It was a club road race, B grade.
It was a course I had done before and knew the hills and various points where the pace would come on etc.
On the biggest and longest hill, the pace was on and it was rising…
I wasn’t even dropped!
I just pulled to the side of the road from within the bunch, wishing I had a flat or mechanical of some descrption.
But there was nothing, the only failing was my ability to suffer.
I can not even say I struggled after the bunch into a howling headwind, I just turned around and rode back to my van.
When they got back and I was asked, all I could say was “my heart wasn’t in it”.
SOFT
Evan
October 4, 2011It was the first crit I raced which included a prime. I was super-pumped: “You mean I could win material goods??” But the race wore on and nearly all the primes had passed without me making my mark. There was only one left, 6 laps prior to the finale. I went all out for this one. The guy on my wheel goaded me on and promised not to contest it — of course some other dude sprinted out of the pack to pip it from me. Oh well, time to sit in and recover.
Only I couldn’t. I’d gone too deep. The pack rode away from me on a flat course 3 laps from the finish. There were other stragglers too, so I didn’t feel too bad. But as I finished the race the next group had already begun to line up, and I had to pick my way through stationary riders just to get to the line. Although that was embarrassing, it got worse when I realized the other stragglers had pulled out in the last lap rather than risk finishing last. So I was awarded the DFL.
GPdomestique
October 4, 2011At 45 with 12 months of riding under my belt, including some real sweaty sufferfest sessions I entered my first crit. I knew I was ready as I adhered to the laws of the Velominati especially rule #10 and could seemly out sprint the ladies at the end of “Revolver45″.
I was further encouraged by the comments received when registering. ” with those legs we’ll put you in D grade”. I talked my way down to E grade, but was warned not to ride off the front too early and make the oldies look stupid. (Did I mention it was a veterans race !)
At the start, I looked at the guy next to me and thought, jeez well done Pops in being able to get your leg over the bike, although you could probably get some bibs that fit more firm, ……….A thought that came back to me when he stood up on the pedals later on when I was crouched in the pain cave trying to hold his wheel.
After 60 minutes in the hurt locker, the bell sounded the last lap. The race was still a bunch, so guys were working for position in the sprint to the finish. Pops appeared next to me and said “hold my wheel and go when I tell you to.” In between my gasps I managed to respond with “Pops, that’s all I got !”
I was rewarded by watching the loose Lycra clad 70 year old guy sprint away for a win.
Welcome to the real world !
Dan Williams
October 4, 2011Friday night. A cheeky take away curry with the wife, just one beer. It will be fine tomorrow its only a Saturday morning friendly 35 miler with my mates.
A 6am visit to the bathroom made me realise that I may have been wrong.
The first climb (a nothing up over a motorway bridge that we use as a sprint race) put me 100m off the back.
10 miles in and struggling to keep up, I stop and put the curry in the grass verge. Its a mile or so later I feel it running into my shoe. There was a fair old streak down my leg.
I finished, on the verge of death, but I finished with them. Well just off the back but I think the smell drove them on.
My shoe still has a small stain that cant be removed. Its a reminder of the suffering.
maryka
October 4, 20112010 Smithfield Nocturne. Mindful of the 5 laps it took me to get back to the bunch in 2009 after I’d been dropped on the start line, I lined up at the front this time. Fitter, faster, better bike handler, this year would be different. Except it turned out that this was just the opening lap behind the car, and as we pulled into the start line again and unclipped for the real start, I found myself too late behind the large arse of someone who was doomed to be lapped in the first 10 minutes. Frantic, boxed in, the start went and I was dropped — again!! — at the start line. This time I struggled to get back on, got tantalisingly close after about 15 minutes, but then an attack went, drafting neatly behind the camera motorbike and I knew it was game over.
Every lap I passed the finish line was a reminder of how humiliated I was to be one of the strongest riders on paper at that race but nowhere near to showing it in real life. Oh well at least I have the powertap data, surely a wattage record for all that work I did… except the batteries had died. The ultimate in suffering!
Marc
October 6, 2011My humiliation was only two days ago. Three of us decided to try our luck climbing Mt Wellington in Hobart to watch the Tour of Tasmania Team Time Trial — 18km straight up… I was sure I was going to do fine, I can usually stick with my mate Phil, Ant is usually a bit faster up hills but I was pumped, no worries. Until we got to the 4th km of 9% gradient, and I just watched them fade away into the fog. Struggling on alone, I finally reach the 1000m marker and see my mates waiting for me — great we can go to the summit together — off we go again, and this time I manage to hang on for more than a kilometre before they are gone again. I eventually struggle up to the summit weary, alone, exhausted, and cold, with Ant looking like he had just had a nice warm up.
Then we did it again. I felt like I could barely move on the second climb up the steep 9% section. Of course Phil and Ant were long gone. Another mate on the second climb told me he’d never seen me looking so wasted and exhausted.
Marc
October 6, 2011Dan Williams, sounds like your mates were suffering more than you… Do they still ride with you?
Andy
October 7, 2011That would be my second season in racing. I’d been happy with my first season, moved up a category, and went into 2007 thinking my upward trajectory knew no bounds. It did. The first race of 2007 was the day after my birthday… well, given that this racing lark seemed fairly straightforward there’d be no problem going out the night before. So, a night of full celebrating was followed by the obligatory early Sunday start. Despite a rather fuzzy head, I arrived at the race feeling pretty good, possibly too good with hindsight.
On the first lap of the 60 mile race, I attacked. Why not? I was on fire after all. The bunch let me go. For about 2 miles, then reeled me in. No problem, I’ll just sit in. Only I couldn’t – I was reeled in, and spat out within a minute. On lap 1 of 8. The last drops of alcohol had left my bloodstream and I was now riding on empty. The next 2.5 hours were a ritual humiliation, but I finished… as much to punish myself as anything else. I’ve been dry before races ever since.