The mornings are getting harder, the nights are getting shorter. My legs are angry a lot more – but I keep wanting to ride more. It’s a tough thing for me, sometimes. One side of me reflects back to my Newton’s law of training and thinks “I have to keep going! I have to!” The other side of me says “Dude, it’s okay to relax and not ride”. The truth (I believe) is some where in the middle.
Last week, I rode, what I believe to be my longest week since moving to Georgia. About 265 miles in 7 days. I then followed that up with a fun day at Six Flags (aka a lot of walking) and then added on commuting to work yesterday. For some strange reason, I find it hard to ride “easy” when commuting. Maybe the intensity of the traffic, the desire to get home, the urgency of daycare closing on time… it could be any number of things, but its hard to go easy. Yesterday – it was the burning desire to get out of the rain… I was able to keep all of my gadgetry clean and dry, I made it okay but was quite wet for a while!
The other thing driving me is the “mileage goals”. Record were made to be broken (at least in my big-skull). I get THIS close to breaking a record and feel driven to keep riding. I want more and more and more… which is probably healthy in that I am exercising – but does the personal drive to beat random (and trivial) records really help me or possibly even hurt me? Does it detract from the ride? Keep me from just enjoying the wind in my lack-o-hair? These are all things I ponder and wonder…
All things said and done, I am enjoying riding. I love seeing the pounds come off when I stop on the scale. I just sometimes fear weight loss and/or fitness burnout. The same thing that makes me want to ride could be actually hindering my riding in the future? Who knows – I’m sure I don’t!
Today – I think I am going to try and old loop I used to ride a lot. Variety could be a lot of fun!