I’m a planner. I like plans. I like knowing the when, the where, and mostly, the why.

Ask my husband.

Actually, don’t ask him. I ask him enough questions. I wonder if I was this inquisitive when I was a child. I ask “Why?” more than any other question.

I question everything and everyone. I want to know why things are the way they aren’t. I ask why they can’t be different or why they can’t stay the same. I ask what’s on people’s minds. I ask why they aren’t thinking of anything.

It puts me at ease when I know the why behind something.

When it comes to training, I need a “why?”.

So when Leadville was canceled, I needed a plan. I didn’t have a backup plan. And like any great heist (as I’m learning from La Casa de Papel), there needs to be backup plans. Yes, plural.

See, in the Netflix series, Money Heist (a.k.a. La Casa de Papel), The Professor describes their robbery as a game of chess. To win the match, you have to be two steps ahead of your opponent. And no matter how bad their situation gets, The Professor always makes a life-saving move.

My life is nothing like Money Heist.

My training is nothing like robbing the Royal Mint of Spain. If it were, I’d have bigger problems than a four-hour recovery ride I chose not to do.

But because I love plans, I’m sticking with my original plan of training for Leadville 100.

Why?

Because it gives me something to stick to. Like The Professor, a solid plan helps you carry out your goal. My goal was to do a sub-9 hour Leadville 100. It’s doubtful I would have actually met that goal come August 15th but now, I have nothing to lose.

The joy of having a training plan without an event it leads to means that if I stray, there are no serious consequences.

When Tokyo strays from The Professor’s plan, people die.

When I stray, I don’t feel all that bad. And then I get back to the plan the following day. Just like that. Like nothing happened. Like everything was going to plan.

The plan outlined a four-and-half hour endurance ride. Instead, I only did two hours.

There’s this new freedom to the plan that I wouldn’t have had otherwise if the race was still scheduled.

Maybe that’s why I love to hate plans. I need them to stay on track. But I also like to deviate from time to time. It’s less pressure now to stick to them since August 15th will be just another date in the calendar that has lost all meaning now.

Our days blur between Monday and Friday. Weekends aren’t what they used to be. Training plans are nearly meaningless at this point with the racing calendar wiped out.

What does that leave us?

The joy of having a training plan that we don’t need to follow if we don’t want to but also, something to keep us motivated when races start again.

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