Epic Effect
Wow, that’s all I can say – but you know me better than that, don’t you?
The Epic, a week’s rest and then back on the bike and the effect is…..
well sort of like someone from NASA has been round a secretly stuffed a rocket in my shorts.
I set off yesterday morning – my fourth ride this week – and meant to take it easy, so I did. But the speed of taking it easy seems to be much quicker than it used to be. I cruise along at 35kph, heart rate barely registers that I’m alive and then a little extra pressure and suddenly I’m spinning along at 40kph without breathing too heavily or struggling. Hills, they too are like pimples in the road, I stand out of the saddle and bounce on the pedals powering up and down the otherside, when once not long ago they left me in lung splitting agony as crawled over the crest, face purple wth effort and an expression of death ripped across my face.
I have knocked nearly 8 minutes off my quickest time to work this week, and four minutes off my time for 10miles. I can’t believe it. Of course I know the science behind it. You put your body under excess stress, it gets tired, you rest, your body repairs the stress damage and you emerge like a butterfly of superpower from this experience.
The only problem is how to maintain and build on this base. Should I give up work and ride everywhere showing the world my quirky cyclists tan lines while developing thighs that wont fit into my trousers, or should I do the sensible thing and quietly return to a normal human being, eating fatty food, not cycling and watching my thighs shrink, tan fade and stomach grow.
Hell no, lets get on that bike and work some more. I think I now suffer from OCD – Obsessive Cycling Disorder – I can’t enough of my bikes and the feelings that come from trying to push my self harder. It’s sad really, I’m 41 and should know better but I just keep going. I’m hoping to do the etape du tour – a mountain stage of the Tour De France later this years, that is if the travel company ever bother to call me back. So that’ll be a breeze then, not! One hundred and twenty odd kilometres over the mountains, with a final climb up Mont Ventoux that a fews ago resulted in the death of British cyclist Tommy Simpson, hopefully I will glide past his memorial nod in respect and not expire in heap next to it.
Now as I have this weekend to myself I’m off cycling again – the second time today, at least it’s stopped raining.
April 11th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
I cannot tell a lie – I saw Paul eating a Big Mac last week
April 15th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Well done Paul for getting back on the bike – even with fabulous weather back in Cape Town over the Easter Weekend I couldnt be bothered to get back on the bike…………After your blog I realise that I need to get back on the bike to see if my wattage has improved after the Epic. I must be honest, after a week off work it has taken me two weeks to get back into the swing of things and have only now had a chance to log in and read your blog. Very Cool and thanks for jogging my memory of how tough it was!!!