Lessons from the Road with Joe Barr: Ride the Metre in Front of You

Decades on the bike have taught me a great deal about performance, persistence, preparation and the art of moving forward.

Some lessons come from the races themselves. Others emerge from the miles, through experience, reflection and observation.

In this series, I share a few of the lessons the road has taught me, and what they might mean for life on two wheels and life on two feet.

Ride the Metre in Front of You

Jill here.

The first time I rode with Joe was in early March 2016, in Calgary, Canada, where I lived at the time.

Now, Calgary is usually under a lot of snow in March. But in 2016, Joe arrived along with a chinook.

For those of you who don’t know, a chinook is a warm wind that blows in from the coast and performs some kind of alchemical wizardry when it hits the base of the Rocky Mountains, resulting in a rapid rise in temperature.

Joe, being Joe, travelled with his bike. So here we were in Calgary in March, and it was warm enough to ride outside.

Now, you have to understand that while I ride, I’m usually bolloxed (technical term) after about two hours. But I really wanted to ride with the great Joe Barr, so we got suited and booted and headed out onto a wide-open prairie road.

The first hill…

What I’ll never forget is the first hill.

It was long enough and sharp enough to get my attention.

Immediately, my heart rate soared into the high 150s. Meanwhile, I noticed, to my crushing disappointment, that Joe’s had barely nudged 98.

I locked my eyes on the top of the hill and said a quick prayer. To be fair, I was mostly trying to hold it together in front of Joe.

But you all know there’s no fooling our Joe.

Bless his heart, he responded by doing one thing and saying another.

He lifted his hands off the handlebars and brought them down to demonstrate that classic Joe grip, the one that seems to get him up every hill.

Then he said:

“Ride the metre in front of you. Just look at it and ride that one metre.”

When you’re under pressure

On the descent, he explained.

When you’re under pressure, it’s easy to focus on where you want to get to. The point where you think things will get easier. The top of the hill.

But when you do that, you inevitably start to push harder, speed up and expend more energy than you need to. By the time you get there, you’re in the red. You’re exhausted.

Essentially, you’ve ridden a double hill: a physical one and an emotional one.

I’ve thought about that advice many times since.

I’ve thought about it when I’ve faced some incredibly difficult parts of my own journey: the deaths of family members, an international move and the challenge of resettling back in Ireland.

Because when you’re under pressure, all you want to do is get out from under it.

It’s human nature to want to hurry through the difficult bit. To push on, get to the other side and reach the point where you can finally breathe again.

But sometimes, in our determination to get there, we make the journey harder than it needs to be.

You don’t have to carry the whole journey

Joe’s advice is deceptively simple.

Yes, you have a destination. Yes, you need to keep moving towards it. But you don’t have to carry the whole journey on your shoulders at once.

Just ride the metre in front of you.

And when you’ve ridden that metre, ride the next one.

There’s another reason I think this is such good advice.

In endurance cycling, reaching the point where you expect things to get easier doesn’t necessarily mean they will. Often, there’s more road ahead.

Life can be much the same.

We can spend so much energy trying to get to the point where everything will be easier that we exhaust ourselves before we get there. And when we arrive, we may discover that the journey isn’t quite finished.

Pace yourself

So, pace yourself, folks.

Keep your eyes on where you’re going, but don’t let the whole distance overwhelm you.

Whatever the road in front of you looks like, you don’t have to ride it all today.

Just ride that metre in front of you. 

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The road doesn’t always get easier. But how we approach it can make all the difference.

Joe brings the lessons learned through decades of ultra-endurance racing into his coaching, helping athletes prepare for the physical and mental demands of going further.

If you’re ready to take on a bigger challenge, train with Joe.