Each year I try and participate in a Granfondo somewhere in Europe.  These are mass participation cycle races, often on closed roads, and usually over a mountainous course.

The events are usually incredibly tough, with the final climb/s of the day usually requiring a healthy dose of willpower to get over them.

Whilst the sense of accomplishment from completing each event is considerable, the feeling on those final climbs is usually very different to that of climbing a mountain when fresh and riding well.

Where the latter is hugely enjoyable, the former is often a torturous slog that prompts thoughts of just why I put myself through the pain.

Of course, each year I generally overlook that and sign up to another race.  A recent study sheds some light on just why this is.

Why we forget the pain

The study recruited a team of marathon runners fresh from the Cracovia Marathon in Poland.  Each runner was asked to complete a questionnaire upon crossing the finish line that covered things like the level of pain they were in, how pleasant they felt and whether they had any positive or negative emotions.

Each person was then contacted again, either three or six months later to ask them to recall their experience of the marathon and the level of pain they endured in completing it.

Nearly to a man (and woman), they all underestimated the level of pain and suffering they felt at the finish.  The underestimation was quite significant too.  Whereas at the finish line they felt their pain was around 5.5 on a 7 point scale, six months later it had dropped to just 3.

Suffice to say, whilst the runners were tending to underestimate the pain they suffered, there was nonetheless a connection between the amount they experienced and the amount they remembered.

In other words, those who had suffered like dogs did at least remember it as being a sufferfest, as did those who experienced negative emotions on their run (ie distress or fear).

This chimes with other studies into pain that psychology plays a big part in how we perceive it, with this perception shaped by things such as the context and our emotions at the time.

For instance, women have been found to rate the pain of gynaecological surgery far higher than that of giving birth by caesarian, largely due to the positive emotions linked with child birth.

Of course, whilst understanding of my bike related suffering is interesting, the findings are likely to have much more important implications for other areas of pain management, such as in healthcare where the accurate reporting of pain is so important.