I will now refer (again) to the time several 14 year olds looked pityingly at me as I gasped and sweated. _uck what you heard, this is the Truth.
You can be as out of shape or behind form as you are. This is important: You can still get on your bike and ride. It will hurt you. You can get out of your bed full up with stiffness and self pity, and you can ride your bike even so. It helps if you will stretch, but do as you like. You ride your bike and in a little time, depending, you will not wake up sore. And standing balanced on your feet, with equal weight on each foot, will seem natural and familiar again. You will then be getting happier and more cheerful as a bonus.
Commuting is your Real Friend.
If it is mid summer (yes! already and how can this happen?) and you are laying off the bike...ride.If you are bored by your local...ride. If x,y or z...ride.
Now. Go ride your bike.
5 comments:
This is Good Advice.
I am fat and grumpy and it's 104 degrees out.
Did I mention fat?
Levi Leipheimer: "Climbing never gets easier. When you train, it still hurts, you just get to the top faster".
Amen Reverend, I cleave close to thee in this time of need. Ride I will.
Work (no complaints!), kids (glad to have them!), beer (yes), laziness (well...) are things that have kept me from the bicycle this summer. I am back now. Awake.
It has been painful to begin anew. To ride the little climbs and be suffering so...wastefully, it feels like. At this point in the year I should be killing it. I am not.
So I think of the time we 1st moved here from Puerto Rico, and it was winter and raining and I was bikeless and housebound for 2 months. When my bikes arrived and it was no longer foggy cold monsoon, I went on the Saturday Ride- a local club ride. People snubbed me on account of my Campy Chorus equipped Salsa was not a Colnago. (The lamest kind of weak-chinned roadie bullshit, with which this town is full up still.)
I suffered through that ~35 miles and talked to whoever was next to me to find a mountain biker who could show me the trails. One fellow offered to take me the next day on a mellow ride with his kids.
So the next day, sore and worked, I made the effort. There I was on my bike at the time (a custom titanium Willits- GREAT BIKE!) not able to keep up with 14 year olds on heavy pieces of shit. I could see the confusion and pity in their eyes every time I rolled up to wherever they were waiting that time.
I have no more ego with regard to suffering through poor form since that day. It just seems ridiculous that I let things slip. Again.
Whatever! I'm awake today.
Might as well suffer.
Yes.
Before we started the trip (when we were still "of fixed address"), I successfully justified our not-training -- because lots of people were really interested in that, for some reason -- with the logic of, "riding loaded bikes will be our life for the next year; let's just take it as it comes. Why train? Just ride."
There was suffering. But there would have been suffering anyway. So far, we're where we ought to be, and proving that it can be done without regimens, "goals," and heart rate monitors. I stand by the decision.
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