Stronger Or Dead
Yesterday, after having the 12 stitches from a bike accident removed from my leg, it seemed time to go on another adventure. My two biking friends have ben bugging me for a couple of years to add a road bike to my toy collection. I have been riding my mountain bike over dirt roads and down rocky gullies, loving it, but they waxed eloquent about the pleasures that awaited long road rides between rough off-road rides.
I did spring for one and I have loved riding it, though road riding feels even more perilous than mountain biking and I am feeling the longer rides, needing at least a day's rest between rides. And I suspect it was my weariness at the end of a long beautiful ride that caused me to be lazy, not snap my foot out of the stirrup and go down hard, derailing and having the cog chew its way up my ankle. I was probably lucky to get away with those 12 stitches and no ligament or muscle damage.
Yesterday's ride was as usual wwith Conrad who, even though he is 6 months younger than I, has the strength and endurance of a man half his age. The first 10 miles were a long gradual downhill and my confidence was building. Finally we turned off the main road onto a small country road which made the ride even better. Until we started a gradual, then not so gradual climb, at the start of which Conrad said, ominously, "This is where it starts to count."
I had already been counting, but Conrad had not. When I had ratcheted down into my lowest "granny" gear, assuming we must be near the top, I asked Conrad, "Where's the crest of this #%^$ hill?"
"Just up the road," he said cheerily. Right, about five miles up the road. And by the time we reached it, my heart rate at been at maximum for longer than I can ever recall and my right knee was calling for a replacement.
Conrad subscribes to the notion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I point out to him that there has to be a point of diminishing return in that formula. But he thinks not. He thinks allowing for age would be the beginning of the end.
And he is likely right. All my life, or at least the past 30 years or so, I have found myself among people who drive me much harder than I think I would drive myself if left to myself. What I have discovered is that I am much stronger and more resilient than I thought. But I still don't believe it, still think I hang on by a thread while I struggle to keep up with the strnger tougher people in my life.
Might describe my marriage.
I did spring for one and I have loved riding it, though road riding feels even more perilous than mountain biking and I am feeling the longer rides, needing at least a day's rest between rides. And I suspect it was my weariness at the end of a long beautiful ride that caused me to be lazy, not snap my foot out of the stirrup and go down hard, derailing and having the cog chew its way up my ankle. I was probably lucky to get away with those 12 stitches and no ligament or muscle damage.
Yesterday's ride was as usual wwith Conrad who, even though he is 6 months younger than I, has the strength and endurance of a man half his age. The first 10 miles were a long gradual downhill and my confidence was building. Finally we turned off the main road onto a small country road which made the ride even better. Until we started a gradual, then not so gradual climb, at the start of which Conrad said, ominously, "This is where it starts to count."
I had already been counting, but Conrad had not. When I had ratcheted down into my lowest "granny" gear, assuming we must be near the top, I asked Conrad, "Where's the crest of this #%^$ hill?"
"Just up the road," he said cheerily. Right, about five miles up the road. And by the time we reached it, my heart rate at been at maximum for longer than I can ever recall and my right knee was calling for a replacement.
Conrad subscribes to the notion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I point out to him that there has to be a point of diminishing return in that formula. But he thinks not. He thinks allowing for age would be the beginning of the end.
And he is likely right. All my life, or at least the past 30 years or so, I have found myself among people who drive me much harder than I think I would drive myself if left to myself. What I have discovered is that I am much stronger and more resilient than I thought. But I still don't believe it, still think I hang on by a thread while I struggle to keep up with the strnger tougher people in my life.
Might describe my marriage.
posted by Blayney at 10:15 AM
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