on reaching a personal best

and the art of recovery

How much mud do you need to roll through before you start rethinking your life choices?

For me it was about twenty kilometers.

Twenty kilometers in the middle of a hundred and twenty kilometer ride.

Today I set a personal best - seventy five miles in the saddle.

Last week, on the first big ride of the year, I did a mere fifty.

On April 20, I’ve stated that I’m going to ride a century.

That seems possible.

Beyond that?

Well, I’ve made some promises, but after today I’m not sure if my role is rider or support verchicle driver.

Somewhere between miles fifty five and sixty five I encountered the mud. The frost is leaving the ground and the trails are soggy. Things typically as hard as asphalt were as soft as quicksand.

There’s nothing quick about quicksand.

There’s also very little as soul sapping as watching my heart rate race to a hundred and sixty beats per minute while crawling along at seven miles per hour.

We rode this shit on the way out. It sucked. On the way back, it was deadly.

I wanted to give up. I wanted to quit. I wanted to lie down in the trail and wait for someone’s labradoodle to come and lick me to death.

Zeke man, I’m dying.

Always the optimist he had a quick response.

I’d hope so. You’ve never ridden this far before.

It dawned on me.

You mean I’ve reached a personal best and this is all I got?

Yup.

Why then sir, does it feel like I’ve been kicked repeatedly in the nuts by someone wearing leaden boots?

With a wry smile and a wink he caught me.

Personal bests don’t come easy. They’re supposed to feel like this.

He and Nef pulled me through.

Once we reached the tarmac, I flew. On a downhill with a tail wind I hit thirty miles an hour dusting past young families with toddlers wobbling on ballance bikes.

I felt great.

Now?

I feel like a turd that’s been eaten by a pig and pooped and eaten and pooped out the pigs arse a second time.

Mr Garmin tells me that I need 96 hours to recover.

I couldn’t have done it without Zeke.

I also couldn’t have done it without my daughter.

But that’s a story for tomorrow maybe.

Meow?

It’s almost nine pm and it’s time to go to sleep.

If you want to be your best?

It’ll likely hurt.

And after that?

The recovery will be longer than the ride.

Keep going you fools.