Back in the Saddle Again

Scott -

I returned from Dubai last week Saturday at basically midnight only to hop on a flight to Seoul for a week about 30 hours later on Monday morning. After sacrificing Saturday to recover from sleep deprivation, today at dawn I mounted my fat ass on Red Chameleon for my first ride in way too long.

The ride this morning was short but sweet. My intended goals were twofold:

  1. Actually get out of bed at 4am-ish to hit the tarmac before the temperature got too insane
  2. Use this and subsequent rides in the short term to start rebuilding now-extinct endurance

I am likely home for three to four weeks before heading out on the road again. This is precious time I intend to use to cycle as much as possible, and attack my unhealthy travel eating habits.

As long as the weather permits, assuming no crazy late work meetings, my strategy is to ride daily. The first week is going to be focused on getting used to being on the bike, so I will only ride about 30km. Once I start to feel comfortable on the bike, then I will up it to my usual morning 40km route. Then periodically I will hit 50km on the weekends, and even on weekdays depending on available free time.

Feeling the moderately cool morning breeze while pedaling on the road, flanked by bright blue skies above and lush greenery bordering the Tama River, felt exhilarating. From the moment I left home I could tell my legs were not going to fully cooperate, but I set that thought aside and just focused on enjoying myself.

My riding stats were pretty bad, though not unexpected. I was not struggling to breathe at any point during the ride, but it was blatantly obvious my legs have been out of the game for far too long. There were no points where they were screaming at me like an angry Karen not getting her way. However, I was noticeably slower and required more effort to maintain speed than when I was riding regularly.

Quite frankly, I was slow as fuck. There were very few times when I hit or surpassed 30km/hour, and that is just horrid. It is time to turn being out of shape on its head.

At least I made it out on the tarmac this morning. Half the battle is the mental energy required to motivate myself to get out of bed. Today I successfully overcame that dastardly internal naysayer's ass and got the exercise my body demands.

Will I be able to do it tomorrow and beyond?

You bet your ass I will!