One Hour

After 4 weeks back on the bike, from a layoff of 7 and a half months, I'm finally back in shape. Over 7 months, what happened? Tendinitis on the outside of my right knee from a repetitive stress injury caused by a bad habit of letting my ankle relax as I went through my upstroke on a fast pedal cadence. I usually ride for 9 months out of the year, then as bad weather conveniently kicks in, I can catch up on my other hobbies (video games, books, video games... I wrote that twice, whoops). The first month off the bike, the pain was terrible, and as it slowly healed, the damaged area included my upper calf. It wasn't until February that I could get out of bed without any pain. It wasn't until the end of April that I could flex and wrench that tendon without feeling any give or weakness at all.

That timing matched up nicely with three events: 1) I sucked the life out of Skyrim, which came out in November; 2) the Giro d'Italia was starting up and making me long for the bike; and 3) my weight loss from my diet plan had plateaued for 3 weeks. Weight loss, how, where? Well, hard to believe, but from January 2011 to the start of May 2012, I have lost 15 pounds. For a small guy like me who is not fat, that is quite a bit of weight, but I always knew I could get leaner. Since I was not exercising at all, I cut down my carbohydrate intake. I also varied my snack time from week to week, so my body would be expecting calories in my bloodstream at a certain time, not find it, and have to burn fat to make up for the deficit. Last year, without paying attention to my diet at all, I lost 8 pounds, I gained 2 over the Christmas break, and then lost 9 before I got back on the bike. I have not been this light on the bike since 2006. I can't wait for 2 months from now, when I hit peak fitness, then I can eat as much carbohydrate as I want. But that's not where I'm at yet. I'm just fit and in shape.

How do I know I'm at base fitness? I have two daily routine courses for the bike, one pancake flat, and the other rolling, that should take me one hour to complete. My first day on the bike, which I also call "puke day," I did my flat course in 1:13. This is 20 minutes slower than my peak fitness average. After 4 weeks, I'm down to one hour. I'm looking forward to see if I can break my record for these hour-courses now that I'm 7 pounds lighter than when I set them. And maybe that "beer softness" around my core will finally go away. We shall see.