[Bail_Monkey]

Masochists:

1. Psychiatry. the condition in which sexual gratification depends on suffering, physical pain, and humiliation.
2. gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others, esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification.
3. the act of turning one's destructive tendencies inward or upon oneself.
4. the tendency to find pleasure in self-denial, submissiveness, etc.


Man, I go on a tough 4+ hr Mtb ride and I feel like I've been run over by a truck... I have never raced my rig, (FS XC) and probably never will. I've often thought of entering a beginners race, but....

Mtb XC must be one of the toughest individual effort sports out there.

 

[uncomplientspud]

lol, i would have to put running and swimming up there as well.

Guess it just depends on the person. All that matters is that you are enjoying your riding and if you are, good at it

 

[aword4you]

I'm no expert, and haven't done many long XC races at all, but I think endurance racers are probably worse off than XCers. XC races don't last nearly as long

Pace seems to be way different (except at the higher levels), but mentality I think is different for me between racing for 1.5-2 hours and racing for 12 hours.

They both hurt; just in different ways. :thumbsup:

 

[Gatorback]

I'm no expert, and haven't done many long XC races at all, but I think endurance racers are probably worse off than XCers. XC races don't last nearly as long

Pace seems to be way different (except at the higher levels), but mentality I think is different for me between racing for 1.5-2 hours and racing for 12 hours.

They both hurt; just in different ways. :thumbsup:

At least with a regular XC race the suffering ends sooner. I remember when training for half marathons (running) that when I would do my long runs, typically of 12+ miles, I'd get to a point with hurting so bad that I would just say "screw it this hurts" and just speed up to get it over with. I did the same thing on a 40 mile mountain bike ride on Friday--after almost 3 hours in the Florida heat I was hurting pretty good and just figured I might as well drop the hammer (to the extent possible at that point in the ride at least) to just get done.

P.S. Those serious endurance mtb racers are crazy, although I'll probably be out there with them someday.

 

[vans380]

You know, I was wondering that during my last race...thinking ' this isn't even fun'. Sometimes there's more suffering than fun, and I do ask myself why I'm doing it.