I am not winning cat 4 races yet but I can say something about pain. I may not be strong enough to push a gear an entire race that will allow me to win a race yet (getting there) but I know what it is like to go so hard with the strength that I have to I literally fall down after the race is over. The pain is real, the ability to block it out is what makes you a better cyclist than someone else.

Pain is not a function of speed, it is a function of strength and muscular endurance. As the body gets stronger you get faster and it takes longer to start feeling pain but it is still there. Three months ago I did an itt and I was going 19 average MPH and feeling intense pain, i.e. was now relizing about 9 beats over threshold. Yesterday I ran the same time trial on my road bike (same conditions, wheels, etc) and ran a 23 MPH average and feeling very simular pain. The pain was still the same, even though I was going 4 MPH on average faster.

If you are not feeling pain then you are probably not going fast enough... of course I am just a cat 5 guy trying to keep up... You are probably just substantially stronger than many 1st year racers from what background I will not know. Either that or you can block out pain more than other riders... so when will we see you as a pro?

The more I feel pain the faster I get... the more pain I feel the closer I get to winning races... the more pain that I feel the relization hits what I am doing... training and getting faster... it is good to be alive!

Now off to go cause some more pain on the bike...