NORTHERN PLANNER

So I've been riding the new/old bike for a couple of months.

I've got embarrasingly tight lycra shorts and a merino jersey.

Recording rides on Strava.

Bascially I'm getting into it.

My legs don't scream bloody murder the day after a long ride now, partly because I've modified my technique and remembered to ride with the whole leg, not just the quads.

My hamstrings are no longer tighter than a piano wire.

It feels good, I'm enjoying it.

Better than good, it all feels new.

Because when I was a lot younger, I used to ride everywhere, to get to the swimming pool, to get to lectures, to get to tennis practise, to the pub (and back). Miles and miles.

Basically, riding for riding's sake is brand new to me.

I'm loving discovering something it seems my body can do, and seemingly, do pretty well. Finding out how far, how fast, what it feels like.

It's all unfamiliar. Uncharted waters. That feels good.

I'm going to do a 50 mile ride tomorrow, just to see what it's like. I'm planning a 100 mile race in September, just to find out what happens.

But I'm still swimming.

Not because it's fresh.

Because swimming feels like home. I've been doing drills, sprints, endless laps and stuff since I was 7. If there's anything that connects who I've been and who I am, it's this.

But age, time to train, work/life/sport balance all means coming close to swimming like I used to just isn't possible.

To quote Leanne Shapton, "Every session is like a phantom off the swimmer I used to be". The feeling, the freedom, the sense of doing something well, the joy in pain, they're all there.

The ghosts of that 7 year old in his very first training session

Of the teenager falling out of bed at 5am to go morning training, drinking a mug of hot milk in the car on the way, then eating a quadruple sausge sandwich while getting ready for school, red goggle marks beginning to fade.

Of the 14 year old training in the open air in Chicago, during the best summer of his life.

Of the 37 year old doing 3 hour sessions on a Saturday morning before his 1 year old boy gets up.

All those ghosts are there. They're welcome to join too. It's bittersweet though, feeling those people you'll never be again.

While it's simple joy to embrace the new.

The happiness (and challenge) of parenthood.

The comfort of nearing middle age and not having to try too hard.

To not only want to continue to search, to have a better idea of what you're looking for and the maturity (sometimes) to appreciate what's already here.

Somehow cyling and swimming embody those two sides of what it's like to be nearing 40.

Not quite resolving the gap between who I was, who I am and who I might be, but happy with the contradiction and realising that conflict and inconsistency are more true to life than coherence.

I suppose the one area of consistency is the realisation of the need to lighten up.

I don't know if I took to swimming because I naturally like rigour,enjoy overcoming obstacles and have a vaguely masochistic joy in the redemptive nature of pushing through pain, or swimming taught me to like these things.

I do know that when it comes to cycling, I'm already addicted to the feeling of molten lava in my legs, the chestbursting climbs and, well, white hot agony.

Just as I prefer 'hard books' music you need to listen to, banging my head against a brick wall to get quantum phsyics to make sense, to cook things properly from scratch, to never compromise on the day job. 

I'm learning to to remind myself to just enjoy things for the sake of it.

To sometimes just do stuff without having to do things properly.

Perhaps, to know the difference between happiness and pleasure, and realising that sometimes, good enough is good enough.

Anyway.