Holidays between races?
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Carlos Sastre / April '08
Lots of people are curious to know what cyclists do outside races. In many cases, and once the season has started, these fans or onlookers normally ask you the same question between races: And now what? A few days off with your family? They are partly right, as we do effectively spend time at home with our family, although we are definitely not on holidays.
Normally, we continue with our daily training, combining it with our family life and media life. On many occasions I have had, and still have the feeling that you are only really doing something when you appear in a televised race. The rest of the time you are on holiday. Or at least that is the idea that many fans have. And at the start of this year, in which the wind has been our daily training companion, I have stopped to ask myself many times whether most people really understand that all kinds of professional work is a job. You have to dedicate time and effort to it every day in order to achieve the desired results.
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When I am at home, the fact that I’m self-employed allows me the freedom to establish my own criteria for training, including timetables and quality; but this doesn’t free me from my daily obligations. It is often interesting to listen to the questions of acquaintances and fans of the sport that use their bicycle as a way to have fun or to do a bit of sport. In many cases, they think that you use it in the same way that they do; and this is only true up to a certain point, because you don't only use it to go for a ride but also to train, even if there is some enjoyment in it.
But don’t get me wrong, I'm not trying to prove anything, but rather explain to many people that sport at a professional level is a job and as such, demands a daily commitment of you. We are lucky in that even though we are in foreign teams, as is my case, we can stay in our homes, allowing us to train on roads that we know well to get the most out of our sacrifice.
Personally, I am also a firm believer in massage, which in my case is not for relaxation but to relieve muscular tensions and to avoid possible injuries from muscle strains. I also value the work of the physiotherapist, a person that knows my body perfectly, treating the weakest areas to make them stronger and relaxing all the other parts of my anatomy that are under constant wear and tear.
As you can see, we have to look after our body and mind to be prepared. This means that we have to sacrifice lots of things and miss out on enjoying intimate moments with our family. But to be in good condition, you have to dedicate a lot of time to training and to looking after your “machinery”, which in our case is our body. Having said that, we should never forget how lovely it is to play and share the joy that your children transmit and that helps you to deal with everything.
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