Once again, I’ve gained enough weight to make all of my cycling jerseys aerodynamically efficient (really tight) and as the warm weather arrives I face the truth of dragging that extra tonnage up hills that now seem steeper and longer than just a few months earlier. To be sure, I’m not the only person facing this issue and there are certainly bigger problems in the world but I’d hoped to be better this year. Last winter, I successfully lost about 25 pounds putting me within 15 pounds of what I’d consider an optimum weight for a middle-aged, local class cyclist so my hope was justified but not fulfilled. On the positive side of things, while I gained back 15 of the 25 I lost last year, I’m still not “normal people” fat, I’m just fat for folks who fancy endurance activities.  Also, I continued to ride the road and my rollers until early January so it’s only really been about 8 weeks of very low activity so I didn’t lose too much riding fitness.  So, there is some negative and some positive and I think I’ll let go of the negative and get to it, again.  I say “again” because this has been a hallmark of my life.  I’m good at the fight but not so good at maintaining achievement. I do well at the extremes but don’t have a moderation mode. Off or on. In or out. Once I arrive I need to figure out a new destination or I struggle. If starting over was a professional sport, I’d be an internationally acclaimed super genius but just as my proclivity to procrastinate evolved into extremely effective patience I believe I can harness this phenomenon into a ladder of sorts to bring me to a place of constant improvement.

Actually, I wrote what you just read ten months ago but I never published it. The good news is I did get going and within 60 days was riding fairly well and continued on well into the fall. I never really lost much weight, maybe 7 or 8 pounds, but I sure had fun riding my bike in 2013. As I sit now, I’m just shy of five weeks out from hernia surgery so I’ve been off the bike for a while. I also had to travel just two weeks after surgery for nine days which didn’t help the recovery process. I’ll be behind when I start riding again in a few weeks but so far at least I haven’t gained much weight so perhaps it won’t be too hard to get back into the swing of riding. I’m going to assume I’ll be fresh and the break will have caused a physiological reset of sorts so that when I begin anew, my metabolism will burn fast and hot putting me on the path to lean fitness that I may not have achieved without the break.

Whatever, I’m used to starting over so over I shall start.