Allow Me One More

One more post about time passing.

I had an older lady, years ago, when I was in my late 20's, tell me "Son, when you get my age, the days go by like hours, the months like weeks, and the years like months."

I can remember thinking "damn that's scary, I wonder what's wrong with her".  Turns out, nothing.  She was so right.

Last night we watched our only son graduate from high school.  In the same theater he had played a sheep in a Christmas play in first grade.  As we walked out to the truck afterwards I had one of those "moments".  "Didn't we just do something like this not long ago?" my head asked me.  "Dude, that was 12 YEARS ago, where have you been?" that other little voice in my head answered.  Exactly; where had I been?

The answer is living life, like all of us do.  And yes, time does seem to fly by (unless I'm on the trainer or the treadmill).  The key, if there is one, is to enjoy the passage of time.  I figure since I've crested the hill, I might as well enjoy the ride down.  It looks like there'll be some serious bumps ahead, but hey, so far it's been a good ride.

Nice how my hair blends with the white wall isn't it?

I'd love to do it again.  Except Jr. high and high school.  I don't want to ever have to relive that.

#2

Which brings me to my second train of thought for this morning.  Last night at commencement one of the speakers told the kids that "this was the best time of their life."  I don't know about that.  Was high school the best time of your life?  I've rarely met any well adjusted people who thought high school was great.

Even college wasn't all that fun, at least while I was there.  I remember my room mate saying "My dad said this would be the best time of my life.  If it gets worse than this I'm gonna kill myself."  But time has a way of coloring things with a golden glow.

The Future

Anyhoo, The Kid came away with Valedictorian (thank goodness for spell check) and some nice scholarships.  His speech was humorous.  It was the most anybody there had heard him say in the 12 years he'd been there.

Now it's off to UF for him.  The Lovely Wife and I will be empty nesters.  Many people have warned us that this will be difficult to adjust to.  It'll be just another bump, but I suspect, not a very big one.  I have been using it as an excuse to plan new hobbies.  Maybe a road bike since he won't be around to ride with.  Plus a kayak for The Lovely Wife and I to paddle since she'll need a distraction also.

I guess that's one solution, just make the bumps into jumps.  Get a little air, you know, and try to enjoy the ride.

Train

Reading an article in Florida Cycling Magazine regarding training plans made me wonder who really does these things?  An example: 25 push ups, 25 pull ups, 25 burpees, 25 sit ups, 25 jump squats (with a 20 ball), run 2 miles, that's one circuit, repeat five times.  I may not be very good at math but isn't that a total of running 10 miles?  I know my local gym in Beautiful Downtown Havana isn't home to many really serious multi-sport athletes but I'm pretty sure no one is hitting it this hard.  In fact I'd like to meet the cat that's doing this level of exercise.

It did make me feel weak about my little circuit.  I used to think I was doing pretty good with my OMTP.  I guess I just need to get out in the real world more often.

Another article had me taking a VO2 max test.  Not a real one but one where you just fill in the blanks with your age, waist size, number of hours you exercise, etc.  The end result showed me to have a "fitness age" of less than 20.  No kidding, I didn't lie.  Now if I can only figure out how to not look like I'm more than 65.

Anyhoo, so now I'm armed with this information.  Somebody out there is doing some serious workouts, and I've got the body of a 20 year old.  I hit the gym feeling pretty froggy, which is a recipe for disaster.  I put the Black Sabbath playlist on and proceed to almost kill myself.

This was my favorite album cover, unfortunately mine got wet and peeled.

The following afternoon is a MTB ride.  Still sore from the night before I roll out to do a 20 minute TT.  I was heaving pretty good by the end and the legs darn sure weren't feeling like they were 20 years old.  As I finished I ran into D. A. and agreed to ride with him while he reconed a Strava segment.  He had just finished his own 25 minute TT but you wouldn't know it by the tempo he set.  He gapped me seemingly without effort.  I do realize he's still in his early 40's, but hey, I've got a fitness age of less than 20!  Hello real world.

So what do I do now?  I'll tell you what I'll do.  I'm going to start another training program.  That's right, I'm going to start training for 50 mile MTB races using LW Coaching's Masters 40+ MTB 50 Mile Personal Record Training Plan.  I figure since my XC season fell apart (it was The Kid's fault) I just need another goal.

By the time I get done with this I should have the fitness age of a teenager.  And about as much sense.

Run Forest Run

I figured after all the rain a forest loop was in order.  I assumed the whole group would want to go.  After all it had been raining Biblical proportions for the past 3 days.  Much to my surprise only Dirt Hippie and The Kid actually showed up, and The Kid doesn't count.  He kept asking who was going, I guess he was afraid of getting stuck with me for 3 hours.  It's been like that around the house lately.

Anyhoo we left the St. Marks trail head late since I had an emergency to attend to before I could get away.  Dirt Hippie was in surprisingly good spirits.  Usually somebody being late sets him off but I got a pass this time.  We rode the new route out which is so much nicer than riding those forest roads, then picked up some single track that we hadn't ridden before.  I'll admit to it being just a little bushy.  That combined with spider webs and wet leaves made it a tad uncomfortable in front.  I was determined to make a loop out of this route, hoping to only use the new section in the middle as an out and back, making the trail on my Garmin look like a dumbbell.

We never had to bushwhack but it was close.  It wasn't exactly fun trail but it was better than riding the roads.  I got a few complaints from my little group but not as much as I expected.  We eventually popped out at the old Springhill pit and they had to endure my "back in the day"stories of riding moto out of there.  We came out on LL Wallace right across the road from Trout Pond, where we got water.

From there we rolled down the paved bike path and hooked into the section of single track north of Fisher Creek.  This had been ridden in and turned out to be fun.  The Kid found out how slick pine trees are, especially when they're at a 45' angle across the trail.  Dirt Hippie was partially responsible for the crash since he was in front.  My complete lack of skill with logs saved me  since I wasn't going to ride it anyway.

The old moto whoops keep the speed down.  It's hard to pedal when the back wheel keeps lifting off the ground.  Still, I can't help dreaming what these trails would be like if they were trimmed just a little.

We put in a couple of efforts on the way back in.  Unfortunately I was low on water so we cut the trip a little shorter than I'd planned.

During our 2.5 hours in the forest we only saw people at Trout Pond and on Munson.  The rest of the time we had the woods to ourselves.  If the feds would just be more aggressive about their burning it would take care of the face slappers.  I think I can get a loop with 30+ miles of single track, not including Munson/Twilight.

In the end my knees were a little scratched up, I had the forethought to wear arm coolers which kept my arms from looking like I'd been fighting cats.  Both The Kid and Dirt Hippie were scratching at their arms by the time we got back to the truck.  I know the time is coming when these trails will be hotter than hell, there's not much canopy, and the yellow flies are sure to appear, but I'm happy to have another option of places to ride.  We're pretty fortunate to have so much so close.