I think that winter is putting me in a retrospective mood, and you, dear readers, are the victims, I’m afraid.

I am sitting here this evening with about 10 tabs open on my browser. 3 of them are related to my work in Japan; one is my Gmail; one is Google Maps, which I’m using to design a new cycling tour; one is this blog post page; the final 4 are articles on High Intensity Interval Training.

Sometimes I think it’s fun to ask how we ‘got here’. It’s also fun to procrastinate – I have another deadline for my Japan job that I am pretending doesn’t exist.

My concern this article is those last 4 tabs on my browser. How is it that I am reading in a non-hypothetical way about high intensity intervals – things I never knew existed til a couple of years ago? Well, it’s probably a complex story, but I like my blog posts black and white, so I have identified a few people who have, in their own ways and often unbeknownst to them, helped steer me to this point.

Joe B (1996): Before Joe Bechtold became a big shot TV star, he was a recovering triathlete who lived in Glenelg, South Australia. I happened to run into Joe B when I was working in Western Australia on a vineyard. I ended up in Adelaide a few months later and Joe had an extra room in his beach house. Moving in there changed the course of my life because Joe liked to do something called ‘training’, which involved riding fast, which I’d never done before.

I only ever went out on one ride with Joe (I had an MTB, which was reason enough), but I left Australia (by MTB!) knowing that there were people out there riding their bikes fast. I also now knew that there were fast bikes, but it was really just an abstract bit of knowledge at that point.

That Guy on Tamagawa (2003): When I lived in Japan I rode all the time, but most of it was on the river that separates Tokyo and Kawasaki (where we lived) – Tamagawa. One day, on a long leisurely ride up the river, I met a Japanese guy on a road bike (I proudly rode a Maruishi Emperor, an 80s-style touring bike with shifters on the down tube) and we decided to ride back down together.

This guy put me in the hurt cave like I’d never been before. It was all I could do to hold his wheel and we were probably only going 25 kph. He told me that he had lots of bikes and that he’d lend me one. We agreed to go out again sometime. It didn’t happen, but I never forgot this humbling experience.

John, my partner in the cycling-tour business, reintroduced me to that hurt cave, back in 2010, on our first fateful ride together. Among other things, it brought me to the realization that I needed a lighter bike, preferably without a back rack, and with tires narrower than 35 mm. He is still taking me into the cave from time to time today, but on a good day I can return the favor!

Karsten, an old friend from Vancouver, introduced me to cyclosportives in France, and we have, more or less, done one or two together each of the last 3 years. We rode my first Etape du Tour together in 2011. We are already signed up for next year’s Pyrenees Etape, so the tradition shall continue.

Coach Rob can be credited with a whole laundry list of improvements in my cycling. First, he patiently explained how cycling is good for me, and that the more cycling I do, the better I will be. This quickly led to 6-day-a-week training programs, a heart rate monitor, indoor trainer, a mild obsession with the weight of my handlebar tape, recovery shakes, leg shavings, a power meter, those conversations we have with our pain, and much, much more.

You! Yes, that’s right, you. This blogging business is far from a one-way street and I gain much more from you than you do from me, I am sure. The comments I get on many of the articles I post are thoughtful, intelligent and often very, very useful. I can’t count the number of ‘one thing led to another’ cases that originated with a comment left by you. So be careful what you say. I might actually be listening.