2 back

As always I ride. 2 rides from the last post. Fast rides. Big gears. It seems like years that I have been riding in the smaller gears. Using spin over force. A coach once told me to go the slow way to get to speed. Spin your legs in smaller gears. Do this for a long time. All winter. Well, it's been 2 years and 3 months. A few outings I have pushed the big gears. It was always wrong. I payed some kind of price every time. It just was not the moment, not the right time. Even in the warm weather of summer the big gear was not right. Was I ever going to be able to push a big gear again. Had the long lay off from the bike (13 years) permanently changed my body. Did the trigeminal nerve, diabetes, high blood pressure, age, changed me for ever. Change, yes. Forever, yes. Could I get a little faster, yes. Do I want to get a little faster, yes. So I went out these last 2 rides and pushed in the big gears on the areas where I could. My legs could do it! After 2 years 3 months. 110 pounds of fat removal. 20+ pounds of muscle added to my frame. Discipline to the road and to the training. No lay off from the bike for more than a few extra days. Riding the bike every other day. I need the other day to let my body to recover. The long plan is working. The big gears are starting to work again. 104" and 96" gears for long periods of time. 45mile in under 3 hours easy. With lots of hills. My average speed up by 1 MPH on the computer for "all" my rides. Not just one ride. That's a lot! Doing 25 MPH on the flats no problem. Doing fast all the time. Till the hills hit. Those hills are always hard and I'm going up faster on them too. What happened? It has been like a switch. Wow, an old guy like me. Doing speed again. I'm going to ease these fast days into the work out. Not every ride. More often than in the past. It feels so good to have the legs push a big gear again. It's the racer in me. Once you race, it's always about the training and the speed. It's been a long come back. Much longer than I thought. I still have a long way to go. Also this hilly Island I now live on has made me a lot stronger. Hills are hard for every one. It that gravity thing. I am doing a lot of hills. The gears are bigger on them to! I am so excited to be able to push a big gear again. It's a dream come true. All those races in my head while training alone. I have so many prizes from races that never happened. Dreams of the long road from an X racer. Maybe I will do that time trial here on the Island this spring.