That’s a good one about Rod Ellingworth, Race Coach at Team Sky. True spirit of Mannschaftsleitung:

… and Geraint fell off on one of the descents. He slid down the road on his hands. Took all the skin off, he did. And the next morning he turns up for breakfast, with his hands covered in bandages. He wasn’t  wearing his racing kit. So I said, ‘Geraint, where’s your kit?’ and he looks at me blankly, says nothing. I said, ‘Come on Geraint, you don’t cycle with your fucking hands, do you? You use your legs! Get your kit on!’

Richard Moore, Sky’s the Limit. Harper Collins 2012, p. 226

Vor der nächsten harten Einheit oder dem nächsten Wettkampf darf man sich ruhig mal fragen, ob man sich wirklich ein bisschen angestrengen will. Das wäre dann etwa so:

I can tell I’m at the limit when I can taste a little bit of blood in my mouth, and that’s how I stayed, right on the edge. This moment is why I fell in love with bike racing, and why I still love it—the mysterious surprises that can happen when you give everything you’ve got. You push yourself to the absolute limit—when your muscles are screaming, when your heart is going to explode, when you can feel the lactid acid seeping into your face and hands—and then you nudge yourself a little bit further, and then a little further still, and then, things happen. Sometimes you blow up; other times you hit that limit and can’t get past it. But sometimes you get past it, and you get into a place where the pain increases so much that you disappear completely.

Hamiliton, Tyler. The Secret Race. Bantam Books, 2012, p. 22.

Oder wie Tyler das kürzer formuliert: I’m good at pain.

Could not have said it better:

… the practice sessions of aspiring champions have a specific and never-changing purpose: progress. Every second of every minute of every hour, the goal is to extend one’s mind and body, to push oneself beyond the outer limits of one’s capacities, to engage so deeply in the task that one leaves the training session, literally, a changed person.

Purposeful practice is about striving for what is just out of reach and not quite making it; it is about grappling with tasks beyond current limitations and falling short again and again. Excellence is about stepping outside the comfort zone, training with a spirit of endeavour, and accepting the inevitability of trials and tribulations. Progress is built, in effect, upon the foundations of necessary failure. That is the essential paradox of expert performance.

Syed, Matthew. Bounce: The myth of talent and the power of practice. Fourth Estate, 2011, p. 74 and 79.