Speechless is what my legs need to be sometimes when I\’m on the bicycle. I also feel speechless many a time when it comes to social media; I can\’t think of anything to say, and I\’d rather not post at all than create poor-quality posts just so I can get something out there. I guess I talk myself dry on blog posts!

Getting back to the bicycle, I say again, I wish my legs were speechless more often on the bike. They start complaining too soon and too loudly when I go into hard efforts. Then I find myself thinking that they need a good dose of Jens Voigt.

I don\’t have to be doing \”force\” intervals for my legs to get cross. During weekly long rides, my legs start to gripe in the second half. It doesn\’t help that I usually have a headwind on the way home; and every week it\’s the same thing: should I push it, or do I need to tone down the intensity? If I do push it, will I burn out too fast?

They say you need to listen to your body. There\’s that dialogue going on between legs and brain during intense efforts: the legs say, Ouch, we don\’t like this, it hurts. The brain says, C\’mon, you won\’t get any stronger if you don\’t do this! Getting my legs to listen doesn\’t always work as well as I would like. I guess that\’s what Jens Voigt meant by, \”Shut up legs!\”

Sometimes my legs win; and then I get aggravated with myself for having been such a wimp. Other times I can get through my force intervals. Even when I do, I get the feeling afterwards that I could have/should have pushed harder for longer … oh, shut up, legs.