Going up some of those hills about 20 miles into that first ride, the mental picture I had of myself was as Tim Conway riding a tricycle, struggling up a hill, just getting to the top and then toppling over like a stump. It was at that moment I knew one could feel like their lungs were about to explode and be laughing hysterically at the same time. At that point I’m sure I looked like nothing more than some demented old geezer with heat stroke induced delirium. Hey, even in misery I try to be entertaining.

Regular readers of this blog probably know that I’m training to ride in the Texas Mamma Jamma Ride Against Breast Cancer that is scheduled for October 10, 2009.

While I’ve been a recreational bike rider for a couple of years now, I’ve mostly limited my riding to early morning, sub-ten mile tours of the neighborhood and the occasional longer weekend ride.

The Mamma Jamma ride site told me there were rides of 10, 25, 45, 65 and even 100 miles for the event. Having never ridden more than 15 miles, and being in the over 50 age group, I decided that the 45 mile distance would be a challenge, but an achievable challenge. When I committed to participating in the Mamma Jamma ride, I knew I had to get serious about preparing for this effort.

Since I am not a trainer, not an athlete and certainly not a trained athlete, I sort of made up my own routine based on information I picked up in various bicycle publications and off the internet. I started by being more respectful to my no longer young body.   Among other things, that meant no more going to bed at 2:00 AM when I needed to be up at 6:30 to ride. If I had my druthers I’d stay up all night and sleep later in the morning but I really haven’t been able to do that for quite a while. So, too often, I’d been staying up late and getting up early and paying for it by being tired a lot of the time. That was one change.

Then I changed my riding routine, particularly on the weekends. Thirty minutes or so is usually all I can spare for riding on a weekday morning, so the brunt of the longer distance work has to be on the weekends. I’d been taking off on Saturdays for a 10 mile ride fairly routinely, but I knew that wasn’t going to cut it if I intended to complete the 45 mile Mamma Jamma course to which I was committed.

The Mamma Jamma Ride Against Breast Cancer organization has a terrific schedule of weekend group training rides and I set my sites on some of those.  Six or eight weeks ago there was a group ride scheduled for my neck of the woods and they organizers had a 12 mile beginner’s ride on the schedule.

Perfect.  I knew for sure I could do 12 miles as I’d done 10-15 miles many times. That ride went very smoothly so I showed up the next weekend for a 25 mile training ride…my first ever at that distance.

The distance wasn’t all that tough, as I found I’d gotten myself into pretty decent shape. The hills, however, were a different matter. There are no hills around my house.  There are hills out in the Georgetown area where the ride will take place and there were hills on that training ride in Liberty Hill.  Not BIG hills, at least they didn’t look big at the start.  ut hills nonetheless.

Going up some of those hills about 20 miles into that first ride, the mental picture I had of myself was as Tim Conway riding a tricycle, struggling up a hill, just getting to the top and then toppling over like a stump.

It was at that moment I knew one could feel like their lungs were about to explode and be laughing hysterically at the same time.  At that point I’m sure I looked like nothing more than some demented old geezer with heat stroke induced delirium. Hey, even in misery I try to be entertaining.

Over successive weekends I rode another 25 mile ride, then a 37 mile ride and two weekends back, I kicked it up to 50 miles.

FINALLY I’M GETTING TO THE GOAL SETTING. Sorry, I do tend to go on.

My First 50 Mile Ride:

The first 10 miles were pretty tough.  I usually takes me about 5 miles to start to feel really warmed up.  But that Saturday I felt tired.  I had eased off the daily training, saving my energy for the big weekend ride.

Ten miles in I was wondering if I had under trained.  But soon I was concentrating on the sadly decaying farm buildings I was passing, the cows looking at me like I was nuts and pretty soon I realized I was feeling better and I was looking forward to the challenge ahead.

Even when I ride short 5-10 mile courses through the neighborhood, I find that I need to give myself goals in order to succeed.  Usually at 1-2 miles I’ll be feeling like I’m going to ‘cut it short’ today.  But at 2 miles, I’ll tell myself, “you might as well do at least one more mile”….and on and on.

Then I recall the ‘deal’ I made with myself some time ago: If you get on the bike you have to go at least 7 miles. So, if the body is feeling old and cranky, I break it down a mile or two at a time.  By the time I get to five miles, I’m warmed up and I tell myself  ” just do the 7 or 8 miles”.

On the 50 mile ride I was glad I’d been through that game with myself so many times before.  Because when I hit 30 miles, I began to wonder what in the world I was thinking when I set off from home declaring that I would complete a 45-50 mile ride.

You see, the previous weekend I had planned my route so that I arrived home at the 35 mile marker.  No so on the 45-50 mile ride. I had routed myself so that I was still almost 20 miles from my house when I hit 30 miles. Yikes!

And the HILLS.  I was riding out in the Lake Pflugerville / Manda area. The hills aren’t huge, but believe me, 30 miles into a ride, they began to look like mountains.  And that’s when I began to play mind games with myself and to ponder the concept of incremental goal setting.

Looking ahead at a long stretch of road with a rather steep looking incline, I took a deep breath and plotted my strategy.

The first thing I did was stop looking at the horizon, at the top of the hill.  I knew that’s where I needed to go, but I also knew the task looked too difficult for the way my body was feeling.  The top of the hill wasn’t going anywhere whether I looked at it or not, so I told myself to stop looking so far ahead.

Next I took stock of my ‘assets’.  I had plenty of water left and I still had several energy snacks left.  Time to rip open one of those packets and get some nourishment. My bike, even though it’s a hybrid and not a road bike, was performing just fine…no mechanical problems.  And I was tired, but not exhausted.  There was still some gas in the old tank.

So I set off to climb that next hill.  Instead of focusing on the crest of the hill, I tried to keep focused just a few feet ahead.  I’m not saying I didn’t sneak a peek once or twice, but I concentrated on staying focused on the immediate task at hand, not on the eventual goal.

Time for a cancer story:

I learned a bit about this strategy from my wife, Jane, when she was in treatment for IBC, Inflammatory Breast Cancer.  Jane had chemo every two weeks.  The week she had chemo she got really sick.

She set a goal for herself to make it back to work on Monday of the second week.  It was tough.  By the evening of her chemo treatment she was starting to show the effects of the treatment. The next several days were worse.  But by Sunday evening she was feeling a bit better and on Monday morning she pulled herself up and went to work.

Jane had a GREAT boss during her time in treatment, Mr. Royce Faulkner. Mr. Faulkner had told Jane that she would be paid her full salary no matter how many hours she could work during treatment.  Can you believe that? So, she didn’t HAVE to go to work.  But it was important to her that she continue to live her life as best she could even during a difficult treatment for cancer.  Jane never verbalized the goal at the time.  She just set about accomplishing it.  And I understood.

It was a goal she set for herself and looking back I see how valuable it was to her set and achieve that incremental goal.  The bigger goal was, of course, to beat the cancer and to get well.   But to do that, she had to get through the treatment.  For her, setting ’smaller’ goals along the way was key.

I swear I thought of all these things while I was riding. One of the things I like about riding alone is that one has a lot of time to let the mind run free and just think about things.

As I rode to the top of that hill, I started to think how I could apply this little lesson to other areas of my life, including my life as an actor.

Staying focused…’in the moment’ in acting parlance…is basic to the craft of acting.  Breaking a play, a role, a scene down into smaller parts…line by line, beat by beat…focusing on the present and not the ultimate goal…basic stuff to the actor.

Thinking of becoming an actor?  Formulate a plan.   Break it down into manageable pieces. Set goals.  Keep moving forward.  Set new goals.  Keep moving forward.

If you’re a writer, I know you’ve stared at a blank page or screen and wondered how you were going to get from there to page 120 of your new screenplay.  You might have used an outline or scene cards or some other device to break down the ultimate goal into more manageable portions. Keep moving forward.

But these basics are also concepts and ideals that can get lost in the very tough day to day BUSINESS of forging a career as an actor, writer, director or anything else.

So, I guess the lesson I learned on that ride…for the millionth time in my life, no doubt…was to set a goal.

Then to formulate a plan to to accomplish that goal.

Break the larger task down into manageable pieces.  Follow one completed goal with another.  Keep moving forward.

The benefits are several:  We ‘win’ by accomplishing the immediate goal.  With each incremental task completed we get that much closer achieving the larger goal.  And each step along the way, we grow in experience and in confidence.

It’s so much easier to attack a ‘problem’ in this fashion.   Of course we’re not necessarily going to achieve the ultimate goal.  Not every time.  But there is honor and success in the trying.  Setting incremental goals can, I believe enhance the chances for ultimate success.

Setting incremental goals helps us avoid being overwhelmed by what may seem like an insurmountable task.   Looking at a task as insurmountable is a recipe for quitting.  Actually that’s a recipe for never starting.