amateur racing

Lies.

As humans, we get ill from time to time.  It's not uncommon to play up a cold to justify the corresponding sick day from work.  Cyclists are a bit different.  We'll play it down so that we can get out on our bikes quicker, say we feel better when we know that we're not ready to go out and hammer the pedals.  We'll kid ourselves and others about our condition... Christ, this sounds like I'm talking about an addiction.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

I've been kidding myself for a while that I'm training, it's the buzz-word that's given to any kind of exercise these days.  I started riding my bike to lose weight, at some point that became “training”, that magic word that makes it sound like you've got a purpose.

Hill climbing, I'm getting used to this...

No I'm not, that's a lie.  Putting myself in a place where my arms lose all feeling and my vision reduces to a single spot 2 metres in front of my front wheel is going to take a bit more getting used to than a couple of hill climbs.