Off the couch and back on the bike

No PR on STRAVA today...

Two weeks ago I was losing a battle with a virus that was not going away quietly.  In a few days I am not allowed to be sick, so to my own surprise, I took it easy.  I didn't want to drive it down into my lungs so no skiing or riding. Alas, the cold got worse and I stayed home and drank glass after glass of orange juice diluted with bubble water. 

A couple days of sleeping eleven hours each night and lounging during the day did the job and pretty soon I felt better.  

As I said, I can't be sick so I was super careful when I started working out again.  Hottie reminded me to take it easy and I did.  I went for a run and felt pretty good.  Until the next morning when my legs felt like someone had shot baseballs at my quads during my sleep. Two weeks off and a run does this?

Today I went for a ride. The first one in a while. Again, I wanted to take it easy both because my legs were still a little sore and to make sure my cold was long gone.

The rain was supposed to let up about ten and it did.  This is a story wherein a lot of things happen that are supposed to happen.  For me, this is unusual. 

I put on my costume and set off for a three hour tour. 

My legs warmed up and I settled in.  There was a wicked headwind and the rain was off and on.  I put on my rain jacket and stayed dry. Later the rain stopped and I put the jacket in my pocket.  I ate a bar and rode on.

I came across the fallen tree blocking the bike trail in the photo above.  It was awesome.

When my day was done my legs felt good.  My body felt good.  That ride was my reset button.

Something is always sore and that is just the way it is

I was off work the last nine days of 2017.  We were in our happy place.  After the first skate ski of the season my hamstrings were very unhappy.  Then after fatbiking my hips were sore.  The hamstrings were better after the next skate ski, but still a bit sore.   By the end of the week everything was working. 

 

Then it was back to work. I threw in an interval session on the trainer after work one night and my quads were achy the next day.  Then after a run my calves and quads were sore.  My lower body was asking, “What next?”  It seems I had run out of ways to hurt myself.  I know that if I ever want to hurt myself I can run more than five sets of stairs and cry the next day.

Grandson Drew 

Last night I went for a run after work.  I carried my phone and was tracking the run on my STRAVA app and listening to music.  The app would audibly announce each kilometer, the cumulative time and the speed of the last kilometer.  All of my rotational torture had paid off, I ran significantly faster than my usual pace.  That had not been the objective of the skiing and biking and biking and running, but it was welcome nonetheless.

This little episode just points out how important cross training is even if we only want to see success in one sport. Cross training gets the secondary muscles in shape and the result is improvement in overall performance. Core, weights, running, swimming and skiing all make us better cyclists. 

Please sir; I want more

Can we ever be fast enough?  Is it possible to feel skinny enough or young enough?  Are we simply wired to always want more of everything?  How is it we can have so much and still not be satisfied?  Is it aspiration or gluttony?

I recently felt wiped out after a week of exceptionally hard physical activity.  When I shared that with Hottie she reminded me how much I had done. In my head I wanted to say, “Yeah, but I want to be able to do that and not be shattered.”  Alas, I am a selfish, greedy bastard.

My unquenchable desire for more includes suffering on the bike.  I very much enjoy a pleasant ride with Hottie or my guy friends, but I also enjoy the solitary suffering in purgatory that comprises the virtually unexplainable part of the cycling mystique. Rule #5 as we say.  The belief that there is honor and glory in suffering is at odds with logical thinking.  I am not sure if my affinity for suffering has its roots in a long expired religious belief, or some other thorn-infested gauntlet that can best be ascribed to our fascination with The Hero’s Journey. Regardless of its origins, not only do I cheerfully accept my allotted suffering, when I do not suffer I miss it. 

Nothing says Happy New Year like Shirnkage

I am at my core a fan of efficiency.  I recoil at wasted effort.  As an example I point to a recently implemented tax on carbonated beverages that contain sugar.  The stated goal is to reduce obesity, yet every study on the subject shows it has no positive effect whatsoever.  The studies show that when people can’t get their sugar in sodas they get it from something else.  No net reduction in sugar intake. Not opinion; fact. The tax on cigarettes works because when cigarettes cost more people predictably buy fewer cigarettes but they then don’t go work in a coal mine to achieve the same amount of lung damage. I’d like to believe these are intentioned people, but I think a more accurate perspective is that they just want to raise taxes for their own selfish benefit. 

The secret sauce of riding fast is intervals.  Intervals hurt.  At some point I began to find a spiritual or meditative value to the suffering that is independent of the training benefit.  I have found that it takes more discipline to go easy on the easy days than it does to go hard on the hard days.  Once you open the throttle you just let it go, holding back takes constant attention.

Hottie reading my Kyson

I am too old to ever expect that I will be a fast rider.  This does not bother me in the least. Yet I still want to be able to train hard as if it mattered.  It may not always make sense, but I want more.  That is just the way it is.