I wish I had seen the post below about trainers a bit earlier. It would have reminded me of my own trainer, a Kurt Kinetic trainer that I purchased at Two Wheel Transit a few years ago. If I had remembered it AND ACTUALLY RIDDEN IT, then the last two days of amazingly balmy weather and decent roads would have felt good. Instead, they felt like two big helpings of misery, under a dollop of pain and smothered with a rich creamy sauce of overweight.
On VeloNews, the cartoonist makes fun of a team called, "Old Guys Who Get Fat in the Winter." I am the poster child for that team this year. I had a ride with multiple falls on September 11, a day that will stand out in my memory now, and then another injury a few weeks later, followed by a car crash a couple of weeks after that, followed by months of sloth and inactivity caused by an unusually heavy work load, horrible winter weather and a major issue between the ears.
As a person who is normally positive, I would suggest putting all of that behind me, but the reality is that I can't put it behind me when a) my behind is so big and b) my legs won't allow me to move fast enough to put anything behind me.
The old school advice was that you should ride the first 1,000 kilometers of the season in your small chain-ring. I am going one better and riding the first 1,000 kilometers in the smallest gear I have, because I can't move the damn bike forward in any other gear. The idea is with riding the small chain-ring is that it promotes "suppleness" in your cycling stroke.
Today, I was as supple as a marble statute. I was as supple as a cadaver with rigor mortis. I was as supple as the asphalt road under me. I was as supple as the trunk of a mighty oak tree. I was as supple as Mt. Rushmore. I was so supple that my legs crinkled with each pedal stroke and I still have the crease marks. If I was an SAT test, I would be, "Supple is to Rider Three as Life Force is to a) a parrot nailed to its perch and pining for the fjords; b) Tiger Wood's endorsement potential; or c) an extinguished star being sucked into a black hole." If I were a new show on the Oprah Network, I would be "Stiffy McStifster's Overweight and Undertrained Stiffness Challenge" and I would be the supreme champion. If I were a contest on American Idol, I would be the guy with his pants on the ground and too stiff to pick them back up. If I were - Oh the hell with it. You get the idea.
Other than that, though, it was awesome to be out for a ride in January when the weather felt more like a decent April ride. I know it won't last, but it was a good reminder of things to come and things that I should have been doing.
Rider Three
No comments:
Post a Comment