Coming back from four and a half months of forced inactivity is decidedly *not fun*. And I know from not fun.
Back on October 2nd of last year, I rode the first of this year’s
Dirty Dozen group training rides. Then my mother got sick, and I had to go to Maine to care for her. Over the following 19 weeks I only managed one trivial ride, while my previous peak strength and fitness plummeted. I only resumed training on February 14th, about a week and a half ago.
Fortunately, my homecoming corresponded with Pittsburgh’s warmest February ever, with a record nine days in the 60s, and a couple well into the 70s.
After jonesing for the bike all winter, last week’s weather allowed me to ride five days consecutively, and in those five days I rode more often than I had in the previous five months! For the week, I rode six days out of seven, covered 167 miles, climbed more than two vertical miles, and burned a spare 7,800 kCalories.
From a training perspective, I was trying to alternate between long, hilly days, and “off days” featuring short but hilly rides, to permit muscle recovery but maintain the training impulse. I hit Center Ave & Guyasuta (the first Dirty Dozen hill) twice, and took the opportunity to go exploring up a very hilly Field Club Road and the gravel outer segment of Old Mill. It felt great to finally put the body to use after endless months of inactivity!
But ironically, that intense desire to be on the bike post-layoff quickly evaporated, being overshadowed by the frustration and immense painfulness of rebuilding my fitness from nothing. It always surprises me that a short ride that I’d normally consider a mere warm-up in the summer can be so excruciatingly painful as to be almost impossible following a short winter break. And this was the longest that I’ve been off the bike in eighteen years!
Normally I’ve valued my off-season, eagerly anticipating the opportunity to relax, do something other than pedal, and eat whatever I want. I’ve always laughed at the muscle-heads who train year-round, caught in the perpetual hamster-wheel of compulsively needing to be faster than all their buddies. While I do enjoy riding fast and long, I don’t have so much ego at stake in my performance. Age and experience give you perspective beyond such adolescent traps.
But shockingly, I’m starting to appreciate the idea of training all year round. Not so much out of a vain compulsion to avoid losing competitive fitness at all costs; rather, it’s to avoid having to endure the muscle-searing pain of rebuilding the strength and endurance one loses during the off-season!
Or, to put it more succinctly: springtime riding still sucks hard! I mean, it’s beautiful and delightful… but it hurts so much that I’d consider giving up my off-season just to avoid that torture.
Thankfully, even in Pittsburgh February heatwaves must come to an end, giving weak, out-of-shape cyclists a breather, and a good reason to sit back and write about the trauma of early-season training.
Will I see you out on the road sometime?