Covid is definitely going around again. Our whole family had it at the end of the summer (way to lose 1/3 of my cycling time!) and now folks at work are getting it as well. The common thing about this strain for everyone I’ve talked to, though, is the speed of recovery – it’s a snail’s pace.
I tested negative by the end of August or early September. The first weekend in September I managed to get on my bike and it was a ride. I rode about 20 minutes at the slowest pace I could manage. It wasn’t too much but I also felt like I’d had a workout. Slowly over September my cycling increased until another wrench got thrown in the works: my bike tires got ruined due to some road construction.
But even when the virus was undetectable, I still had challenges. My sleep was interrupted by insomnia, some of it anxiety-fueled, all of it resulting in 1-3 hours/night out of bed. That took another two weeks to fully pass. Now my night time stress readings and heart rate variability are coming back to relatively normal.
For cycling I consider myself to be back to normal – sadly a bit of a “detrained” normal. Riding so little did me no favours (well, except likely ensuring I recovered without issue – let’s not forget that.) This week’s been a great one cycling so far.
I started off last Wednesday with my current favourite ride: a counterclockwise ride at sunrise through Thornhill, a suburb just north of Toronto. The roads are smooth, the traffic at 6:00 AM is light. I can usually count on seeing at least a few animals, the skunks like to be out when it’s still fully dark, I might see some deer on the path at sunrise, and once I was lucky enough to see a really big coyote trotting through a residential neighbourhood – not 500 metres from a “Lost Cat” sign. I hate to tell them…
I like this video because it shows how my rides have been this time of year. Fully dark at the start, slowly getting lighter and by the end there’s sun.
Speaking of sun – Friday afternoon my bike tires were ready. I picked them up and the next day I was out. I had great intentions of going for an early morning ride again but my plans were laid waste by a headache. So after Hindi class I headed out. Where my morning rides are around 25 km, this one was 35.
What a day – the weather was so lovely – 26°C and you can see the sun. I actually needed water on the way. Don’t be fooled, though. Autumn is coming – just look at the leaves in the video above
What was really noticeable in this ride was the traffic, though. You can probably see just from the videos but there’s a LOT more traffic in the daytime (shocker, I know!). But I actually have a count of cars. My first ride above had 9 cars pass me in 23 kilometres – many of them while I was in a bike lane. But my daytime ride? 176 cars in 35 kilometres.
Yesterday was my favourite ride of the week, partly because it was fun and fast, and I really felt strong doing it, but also from the idea it planted in my head. Here’s the ride to start – on the same route as my first one.
What was especially cool about this one, though, was that I used a feature in my bike computer I’d forgotten about and so have rarely used: the ability to race your past self on the same route. So I gave it that first ride above as my competitor and rode it again. The short answer: I didn’t just beat that past self by 13 minutes (57 min versus 1hr 10 min) – to be fair, he was riding a much heavier, slower bike – but I also beat every other ride I did on this route by a minimum of 3 minutes.
How did this competition make a difference? In previous rides I had one data field on my computer displaying “average speed”. This seemed good in theory but didn’t really show overall performance compared to my past self. It also was not responsive and grew less so the longer the ride. After an hour it would take a huge speed boost to increase the average.
But with this feature I changed that data field to show me how far ahead or behind me my past self was. If I slowed, he got closer, if I sped up I could quickly see if it made a difference. Was I pulling further ahead? Most of all, it gave me a metric to follow that could increase or decrease quickly in response to my effort which acted as a constant reminder: don’t slack. I would catch myself letting off a little bit or thinking about gearing down on a hill to go easier (but slower) and then realize I still had some strength left to use and pushed. It was effectively task-focused mindfulness.
I feel like on a lot of other things I’m trying to do well at I’m doing the equivalent of following “average speed” and just trying to move forward. Whether it’s eating healthily, getting work done at work, or learning new Hindi vocabulary, I start the task and my bar is simply “do the thing” when it could be “do the thing with enthusiasm and focus.” So that’s something I’m thinking and exploring now – not being content with “doing the thing” but “doing the thing like I really care.” We’ll see how that goes.
Today was a lighter day ride-wise and it was a complete departure from what I just talked about. My alarm went off at 5:25, I got my gear on but it still took me over 25 minutes to get ready. I could definitely do better – or at least have my gear ready to go. It felt like I was going through molasses though. But get outside I did, and into scattered showers. It wasn’t raining when I first started but everything was wet and so it seemed like the light was just being absorbed instead of reflected. There was not even a hint of lightness in the sky.
I also did feel the previous day’s effort so I took it as a bit of a recovery day. This was probably a good idea for more than my body’s well being. On the trails I took there were lots of wet, slippery leaves, and with the level of darkness I could be quickly surprised by a human – or skunk for that matter, and either one of those encounters could end badly.
Even in the screenshot above it’s clear: it was dark. And my caution was warranted. As you can see, there were skunks – two, in fact. There were a few people as well, surprisingly and also one adorable rabbit who was completely still for the photo. Then, I slowly past them and they calmly walked down the path in the opposite direction.
I did get rained on, but it didn’t pour and it was still mostly warm. In fact, the weather was odd. It reminded me of swimming in fresh water. I would be in a spot where it was really cool and then I’d come around a corner and it would feel like someone turned on the heat.
Between being much slower including having a couple of climbs, and also getting lost when I missed a turn and took an extra hill climb, I got home much later than expected. No morning coffee at home, I ate my pasta I saved for lunch as breakfast and rushed out the door to work without a moment to spare.
So not really a day I’d consider racing my past self. Or maybe it was as I did consider just going slow and working an extra day from home (which I didn’t want to do as there were meetings i wanted to attend in person). All along, in fact, I just stuck to task.
So here’s to racing my past self.
Have fun Todd.