The Impossibility Of Maintaining Fitness

Back when I was commuting to work several days a week, I was keenly aware of how quickly my aerobic fitness could fall off. I kept a log of rides, and the times and average speeds. (Yes, I'm a nerd.) After a few months of making a round trip of about 20 miles, three to five times a week, I would have a certain level of speed, say 17.5 mph for a typical run. (You realize, to average 17.5 for a 10-mile ride to work, which I routinely did, I had to maintain 20+ on a lot of stretches.)

Then I'd take a vacation, or would get sick, or for some other reason would be off the bike for two weeks or more.

When I returned to the commute, my speed would be down by 10% or more, say 16.0 mph. And the apparent effort would be much higher; what had been a pleasant challenge would be a miserable slog. After as little as a two-week hiatus, and although I felt perfectly healthy for normal activities, my ability to cycle would be sharply reduced. I would need to ride for at least as long as I had been off, to regain the former level.

As my life presently is, in a very pleasant retirement, there is never an extended period of regular riding as there was in the days when I worked. We travel often, and for long periods. And I was riding less in any case, typically only three days a week. So no sooner would I manage to build up some kind of level of aerobic fitness than we'd go away and it would evaporate. Back to square one.

So as I said, when we returned from a long trip last fall, the thought of getting on the bike and finding out how weak my legs and lungs had surely become was just daunting. So I moved the recumbent out of its privileged spot in the house next to the front door, exiled it to the garage, and left it.

I started jogging, first on a treadmill at the gym during the rainy days, and then on the street, and gradually built up to two-plus miles. It's an OK way to get exercise...

But it's spring, and I can remember the fun and feeling of adventure that comes from a long ride through California countryside in spring and summer. But if I tried it, could I even climb a hill? And if I did go through the pain and effort of building up some minor sort of cycling ability again, I would just lose it again when we take a planned road trip in May, and a European trip in September.

Here's the bind I'm in: the kind of cycling I remember enjoying—that is, rides of 20-50 miles that inevitably have some hills in them—is simply impossible without a certain level of fitness. Not a huge level, I'm not talking about Lance Armstrong stuff here, but definitely more than the typical person of my (ahem) late middle age usually has, even if they are nominally healthy.

I could probably regain that fitness level with a few months' consistent effort; there are plenty of guys a decade older than me out there right now. But as my life presently is, I won't get consecutive months of consistent riding. And if I did regain fitness, I'd quickly lose it over the next vacation.

Oh, wurra wurra, what to do? Answer in the next post.