"Live and Learn"

I've have always said that any day that I learn something is a good day.  My problem is that I learn most things the hard way, like my cement floor experience 2 days ago.  In short, learning is often a painful thing for me.

Today hurt a little more than the cement.  You see I had a friend who I haven't seen for a few years.  I've been meaning to call her so often to check up on her.  She had s bout with leukemia a few years ago, and I thought she had beaten it, but I needed to check in with her.  Too late!!!

I have spent all day trying to figure out how I feel.  Is it guilt, sadness, anger?  Maybe some of each?  I think despair is a good word.  There's a whole bunch of cliches to cover it but rightly so, because death really is so final!  I can't fix my mistake.  

All I can do is learn from it.  You see it's not that I owed my friend anything.  It's what I owed myself!  The pleasure of a visit or even just a phone chat with her.  She was an exceptional human being and I short changed myself by not making the effort when I still could.  

But if you subscribe to the theory that the best way to learn anything is through a significant emotional experience, consider me well taught today.  This week I will make another visit that I have put off for years.  I'll let you know all about it.  

And on the more mundane learning front I spent a somber afternoon trying to figure out more about my computrainer.  I was under a misconception about the basic principles behind the thing.  I ordered a virtual reality DVD from a third party who claim to be able to use the trainer to maintain given power levels,  regardless of hills.  I couldn't  understand how that was possible since I thought you could just gear down and compensate....make it easier in other words.  And furthermore, if it was indeed possible to force you to maintain a certain power level with this 3rd party app, then it should also be possible with the computrainer itself.  Guess what?  It is!  I just didn't know.  

You see I had resistance and power mixed up.  Resistance is exactly what it sounds like.  The amount of force required to spin the wheel.  Power however is resistance times speed, and here's how it works.  If you pedal slower, the machine just increases resistance, and vice versa.  So gearing down doesn't help you in the slightest.  You can gear down, gear up, slow down, or speed up and it ain't gonna make a damn bit of difference.  You either ride or you stop!  Nothing in between....period!!

Now that I understand it a bit better I have to figure out the next step.  Creating my own workouts.  This will be of immeasurable value when I re-start my winter training next week.  You see, in the past I would always have to monitor my interval workouts to make sure I maintained the prescribed power level for each  segment.  A real pain in the ass, as I would be continually stopping and restarting the timer on top of trying to keep my averages up.  Once I figure out how to create an entire session it will mean pushing start once, and then just putting my head down and pedalling....as fast or as slow as I like.  I think it will have the added benefit of encouraging me to keep my cadence up, simply because over time, it's less painful to pedal fast.  Actually I think I already know how to create the workout but I can't seem to save them  It tells me to talk to the computer administrator, and I'm pretty sure that's me.  If I can't figure it out I may have to break down and ask Odd John.  I'm reluctant to do that because I know he'll have a field day with my ignorance!!

But so be it if necessary.  The most obvious way to stop learning the hard way is to learn from someone else.  I'm slowly coming to realize that the pride I feel in gaining a bit of wisdom without anyones help, becomes rather, an exercise in masochism. My face and my ass, as well as my ego can all attest to that!!

Computrainer programmimg

"Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back an ass"---Anon

Love
Peter