I honestly don’t know how I ever made it for five years with little to no physical activity other than golf and maybe a little skiing during the winter.
Well, it helped that I was fifteen years younger, in my early thirties. Fast forward to my mid-forties and after a week off of the bike, I’m sore and grumpy… on vacation! If that wasn’t bad enough, and it is, certain things just don’t function right when I don’t ride… Let’s see, how to keep this PG-13… You know what I can’t, and it’s freaking gross to write about so I won’t. But you know where I was going to go with that. If you don’t get it, please let it go. Chuckle.
With the club ride tonight, I rode with my wife for an easy 55 minute 16 miles last evening.
Walking out of the front door holding my bike I had to chuckle. It was hot. Not quite Georgia hot, the sun is simply more intense down south, but it was hot nonetheless. I was sweating just sitting outside waiting for my wife. We rolled out at 5:15 with a goal of just getting our legs back after vacation (my wife was off the bike for two weeks, I was only down for one). If there’s one thing I’ve learned about cycling in the last five years, it’s that it takes a minute for the legs to come back after down time. I’ve found that there is a definitive moment where all of a sudden what should have been an easy pace becomes easy again.
As an example, I’d had exactly seven days off of my bike when we rode Sunday morning. I brought the rain bike so the ride was difficult enough just for that. My legs, though they felt spectacular for the rest I got, weren’t exactly cooperating either. Yesterday’s ride didn’t start out much better. While there was a breeze out of the west, we were heading north and spinning at 17 mph just felt… off. My wife was struggling even more than I was – she had the “WTF” look stretched across her beautiful face.
We soldiered on. Lo and behold, long about the 14 mile mark, heading into the wind at 17 mph, my legs loosened up and I started feeling like me again, or more aptly stated, like a well rested me. After that, 18 mph was easy. Just like that, one minute I’m struggling to hold 17 mph and the next, 18 is easy.
Tonight’s ride should be rather interesting. Low winds (5-6 mph), lots of sun, and hot. Of course, I’ll take this over riding my mountain bike in the snow with temps in the 20’s (-7 C) any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And thankfully, everything’s back to normal.
Fit Recovery 