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Tuesday, March 21, 2017

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. (Thomas Carlyle)

On Tuesdays I chase Al up the Rickenbacker Causeway and around Virginia Key and Key Biscayne. Loop after loop after loop. He stops at points to check on me, then he sprints off, gradually moving into the distance once again.

Tuesday is the day of the week I work the hardest. Tuesday is all about me and my power meter. The game on Tuesday is to push muscles to exhaustion. But with care. I use the power meter to pace myself. You see, the Tuesday game may be to push muscles to exhaustion...but I still have to finish the day's miles. (Which right now is 50 miles. No stopping early. No Uber. And soon the miles will increase...)

OK, you are wondering where Al comes into this. Well, it is way more fun to chase something than just to focus on numbers. I never catch Al, but that really doesn't matter. It may be silly, but I now totally understand why dogs chase cars. It is just a whole lot of fun.

You can make any muscle stronger by working it to exhaustion. Which is great for older, smaller riders like me. I can't push out the big power numbers. But I don't need to. I'm small enough that I don't need big power to move me down the road and up the hills. And I'm retired. Which means I have the time to push smaller numbers for more miles, and so get stronger to go faster and longer.

And best of all, I'm not bored.