Sluggishness and the search for childhood experiences

Net image, not my own.

Repeat readers of my blog on fighting obesity with fitness will know how important cycling is to me. It stems from a life-long love for the activity that was born in my childhood.

It's also important because it's low-impact and empowering for an obese-sized man like me.
I can whisk myself around the city like a man in flight and not have sore joints afterward.

Last week I hit a wall. Too much cycling, not enough recovery time. When this happens, I don't enjoy my ride as much because I feel weak and strain too much to have fun. I often feel bad about not being able to get out there.

I took some time off and walked or jogged instead but those days turned into nearly a week as I decided to focus on refurbishing an old mountain bike and do a little upgrading on my hybrid road bike. I took the mountain bike that a friend donated to me apart down to the last ball bearing, cleaned all it's inner bits, replaced some more parts and even painted the frame while it was disassembled.

My new tires are big on my mountain bike and they slow me down. The mountain bike is a lot less efficient than the bike with smooth, hard tires made for pavement. If you're using a bike to improve your health and fitness, I suggest getting the right tires: tires that are smooth and hold at least 65 pounds of pressure. A mountain bike is good for heavy people because it's stronger, but being able to glide along with ease may keep you out there longer and more often. I'm using my mountain bike just for off-road adventures on light trails. After that, get a good seat that is comfortable. I went with a huge springy seat.

When it came time to test my refurbished bikes out, I was discouraged. My body was sluggish and I began to wonder if I had cycling in me as much as I thought. But then, last night, after an afternoon visit to the gym where I jogged on a treadmill, I took my road bike out for a test in the humid but cooling night air. I surprised myself.

I had myself believing that I couldn't go for a significant bike ride on a day I had already jogged. I had myself believing that I was too tired from a poor sleep the night before. I had myself thinking it was too late for a ride. This is the problem of the obese person: too many negative voices saying "You can't..."

I had one of the fastest, most aggressive rides of my life. Sometimes you feel like you have a tail wind the whole way, even when you don't. My legs just took off. I went so fast, I didn't even feel safe at times. Fortunately, the local football team was playing and the streets were deserted.

I made an effort to recreate the moments that made me fall in love with cycling when I was young, those nights of pure freedom when hot air off the pavement blew over me as I soared through the city. I ventured to my old neighbourhood and I rode through the streets that I'd take off on when I was a kid on a similar hot summer nights.

Some of those streets are notorious now and most people don't feel safe there but it didn't matter, I was going too fast.

My Eight-Year-Old Trainer Pushes Me Hard

My kids, like most these days, aren't big on getting off the couch and doing things. Even though we try not to hyper-parent or be overly protective, keeping them on a short leash, there still seems to be little that gets them out into the real world. But my eight-year-old son rarely says no to a bike ride with Daddy, even if it's clear across the city to visit Grandma. Even my four-year-old daughter joins us on the ride-a-long bike trailer sometimes. We did 90 minutes in the warm sun the other day.

My boy, who has always been slower to advance athletically compared to many of his peers, is pretty gung-ho to head out on a bike and pedal to the best of his ability. His ability used to lag behind my rapidly improving fitness level, but now his fitness is improving too (building muscles I presume) and he's pushing me. You wouldn't think we'd be a good match for workouts but I'm still a very overweight middle-aged-man and he's just beginning to blossom into a young athlete as he grows like a well-watered weed.

I don't know what affect our bike rides will have on the kids in the long term, or what they'll remember of it. I do know that I couldn't imagine my parents even going on so much as a walk with me, let alone a bike ride.

I refurbished an old mountain bike to compliment my road bike (hybrid). It's opened up the door to all sorts of new adventures and put at ease my anxiety over breaking a bike wheel again. However, mountain bikes are less efficient than road bikes and I have to work harder to keep up with the boy who won't slow down.

We also bought a deluxe bike rack for the car. This makes us officially a cycling family, like the happy, adventurous ones you see pulling up to bike shops or occasionally depicted in tourism commercials on TV.

It's such a far cry from the other stereotype I used to be.