I aim to ride my bike everyday. It makes me happy when I do and it is part of my normal daily routine. Up to the end of October I had ridden 291 out of the 304 days this year. The missed days almost exclusively due to family holidays and travelling overseas for work. Then at the beginning of November I got ill and I've had to address a period of time away from my bikes.
First and foremost I ride, as I said, because I simply enjoy it. Cycling is how I relax and socialise. It is a way to keep fit, with some competitive goal always in my mind for motivation. However, I will admit that there are other pressures at work that lead me to suspect I am addicted to cycling.
The truth is I don't think I could stop. If I miss just a single ride I will start to get quite grouchy. The drive of this addiction is motivated throughout the year by weekly and monthly totals of hours in the saddle and miles ridden. I have a spreadsheet dating back to 1999 and the numbers in there are what drive me. Every week, every month, every year I am always conscious of my own history and I am always trying to beat it.
In my head I have set myself standards I consider acceptable, or in other words, minimum goals. 6000 miles a year is the starting point. That breaks down to 500 miles a month. February is always tough, as is August if we're fortunate enough to have a 2 week family holiday. 100 miles is the least I will accept in any single week. I must spend at least 7 hours covering those miles although I'm targeting ten. Even the rides themselves have goals within them. A weekend isn't a success without a ride ticking over the 3 hour mark. During that 3 hour ride I should cover at least 40 miles with 1000m of climbing. All this is totally irrelevant in terms of a structured training regime, it is based on the past 25 years and what I consider is acceptable.
These self imposed rules dominate my life. If for some reason I don't hit all of the targets in any given week, I can live with that. I work hard to catch-up the following week. However if I start to miss my goals for a couple of weeks the grumpiness builds. Monthly targets are now in jeopardy and therefore also the magical 6000. Unreasonably it will effect how I am with my nearest and dearest. My wife will probably end up sending me out on my bike and telling me not to come home until I've cheered up! To be fair it works.
So I don't cope well with being ill. I'll already not be feeling good and then as the days pass I can sense the rides slipping away one by one. The current period I am in is especially bad as it has been keeping me off the bike for longer than a week and the end isn't clearly in sight. Today marks the two week point since I last turned a pedal. My legs were tingling in bed last night, keeping me awake. I tossed and turned imagining it was the fitness literally seeping out of them.
The logical part of my brain tells me that 2 weeks is neither here nor there for a recreational mountain biker like myself. There is nothing logical about it though. Actually the issue is growing each day, burning and swelling inside me until I will have to give in. Especially as I start to feel better the pressure mounts, stronger and ever stronger to rush things and to get back on the bike. What harm will it do after all? By now in my head my legs have become spindly, wasted beanpoles unable to turn a crank. I must start the recovery right now! Hold on I can barely stand for more than 5 minutes. Never mind that, you are sitting down cycling so you'll be fine....
I daren't look at my spreadsheet, oh no I have! The damage that two fat zeros has done in the mileage and hours columns is a disaster. Boosted by my spring ride across Europe, 8000 miles hadn't been out of the question for 2023. That's gone now.
But hold on.....
As I scan back I can see that my second highest total in a year is 7178.6 miles. That should still be possible, shouldn't it? Doctor when can I get back on the bike please?
