Time Trials and Tribulations

Yesterday evening, I had a phenomenal ride on my trainer. I rode 12 miles while averaging 20 miles per hour.

You may wonder: What is the significance? Why am I continuing to read this? What is Matt's point?

In 1999, I was 33 tears old, and began training to pedal my bike from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Alaska. The thought of riding so many miles terrified me, so I trained "like the dickens". At 6'3" and 270+ pounds, I was sort of the anti-cyclist.

As time went on, I felt strong and powerful on my bike. I was riding 30 miles a day on my trainer, four days a week, averaging 20ish miles per hour. Yep, my training rides of 30 miles would take me approximately 90 minutes.

I was never much of an athlete, and was always overweight. So I got to the point where I began to wonder if I was in the best shape of my life. Granted, if I had trained this hard between the ages of 20 and 30, this thought would have never entered my mind.

Instead, however, most of my exercise in my 20s consisted of beer curls and pizza runs.

It's no secret that people's health generally heads downhill at a certain point. The nice thing is that I was never in prime shape to understand my potential. Instead, I was hitting peak shape at 33 years old.

The following year, I recognized that I had some shortcomings in my cycling ability. Since I had signed up to ride from Missoula to Billings, Montana, I knew I had to train a little harder. After that ride, at 34 years old, I was in the best shape of my life.

Shortly after that, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease.

My chemotherapy and radiation treatments were brutal. I pretty much lost all of the conditioning I had had. However, because I had been in such great shape to start with, I was able to survive the treatments a little better than average.

The problem with cancer treatments, however, is that there are short AND long term potential side effects.

So when I got back on the bike, and my riding wasn't near as strong as it had once been, I began to ask myself some questions:

Is it because of treatment?
Have I become lazy?
Is it a result of being 40?

To be honest, I don't know.

I do know that endurance cycling - and cycling in general - demands some level of suffering. I used to enjoy pushing myself to the limits of my body and tweaking out an extra little bit of suffering. But now, since I suffered through chemo and radiation, I don't want to impose that much suffering on myself again.

In addition, during the last couple of years, I have developed a painful nerve problem along the inside of my calves and ankles. This is a long-term result of chemo. The tops of my lungs are fried because of radiation, which makes it very uncomfortable - and sometimes painful - to ride in cold weather.

Yeah, laziness has something to do with it. But so does aging and side effects of treatment. Lately, I've been instilled with the desire to be healthy again - thankfully - and as a result, I've been riding my trainer a little more.

My rides have basically been quick 10 mile rides that take just over 30 minutes. I have been documenting my rides, and have noticed that I have raised my mph on each ride. This culminated yesterday with my awesome ride.

So why is this important? Well, for 35 minutes and 56 seconds yesterday, I rode as if I was seven years younger and never had cancer.

It was a beautiful thing.