How do you regain motivation?
 

After a kidney operation 6 months ago am now ok. But have lost motivation for cycling. Over the past six months I haven't had more than three or four rides all short ones, 20 miles (30k) or so and a few occasional short rides on turbo trainer . I am pushing 79 and used to ride every day before the op. I am looking for the motivation to train, ride get fit for a 160k ride in October. It is not an easy flat ride. I live in New Zealand and have no riding companions. Nor know anyone interested in riding. I think I am pretty unfit now lol, also about 4 or 5 kilos overweight in my opinion. .
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Maybe some of your friends that don't cycle might be up for it if you challenged them. And they don't have to be your age. I ride often with my 31 yo son and personally, I hold my own pretty well with the younger folks. It helps me quite a bit when I have someone I can ride with. They don't want to any more than I do at various times.

When they ask me to go for a ride with them, I feel obligated to do so whether I want to or not. Likewise when I ask them to go ride with me they feel obligated whether they want to or not.

Sometimes just knowing that I have to ride more than them to keep the same pace or do the same climbs motivates me to do more solo rides too. If you don't have any friends that ride, then check with your LBS's and cycling clubs around you. The LBS's here usually have a Saturday ride of various groups. Some do group rides during the week to. Of course you need to get your vaccination and heed your local covid guidance.

Suppose you had a miracle dream about regaining your cycling fitness, what would be the first thing you would notice about yourself once you awakened?
What will you see when you look in the mirror?
What will you feel inside yourself?
How would you be different?

The answers are within you, not others.

I'm 75. What works for me is terror at what will happen to me if I don't get after it! I suppose there's a non-obvious thing going on, called positive reinforcement. I've been self-employed for almost 50 years and I think there's an analogue between that and whatever sort of physical training.

The thing is, you don't get any positive reinforcement until good stuff starts happening. Up until then, it's all disappointment. At our age, you go out for a ride and get sore, so you don't ride the next day, which was only 20 miles anyway, so that's only 10 miles a day, which isn't going to do anything anyway. Or some such sequence. You don't get the positive vibe going until all of a sudden you're riding 40 miles and climbing decently at least. But there's a big gap between starting out and getting there.

I read an interesting study a couple days ago about the aging process. The study said that the big thing that happens is a loss of "resilience." When something happens that causes us older folk to lose fitness, like an injury or an accident or even a long vacation, we don't just pop back like we used to. There's this break in activity and our ability after the break is not as high as our ability before the break. I had a break last year, partly Covid closures and partly a physical problem. I've been working the problem very diligently since last October and I'm only now seeing what I would call "good results." I'm still not where I was before the break, but I think I can see a path to get there. I had to change my training quite a bit to get it back.

I saw a study that said that taking 1200 mg of NAC and 5 grams of glycine each day would help. I just started that last week and I think it does.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ctm2.372
I couldn't convert the dosages shown from mmol to mg, The amounts I gave above are from other sources.

Try to get some results, don't just ride.

Maybe acquire an old single speed 'casual' bicycle (aka a 'Beach Cruiser' here in California) and start by riding that for a few miles/kilometers on a regular basis? You don't have to 'push' yourself, just hop on with casual clothing and ride somewhere - a store, post office, down to the beach, anywhere nearby.

Usually when I need to get motivated I just need to force myself out the front door and start pedaling, and within a short period of time I'll feel like keeping the pedals turning for the next 1.5-2 hours. :thumb:

GlyNAC
 

CarbonFiberBoy Are you taking straight NAC or GlyNAC listed in the study? If you are using GlyNAC where did you find it?
Thanks!
Dee

Try something different from what you did before. Type of bike, where you ride, riding to destinations. Something to make it interesting.

If I were you I'd start posting on Strava and look for other folks to ride with in your area. Sometimes getting involved with others either in an informal or formal (think club rides) can jump start motivation.

You can find both glycine and NAC at bulksupplements.com.

I didn't see this because you didn't quote. The answer is yes. The invented term GlyNAC merely means taking them both. Glycine is easy to take, just dissolve into some beverage - I put it in my whey protein drinks. NAC OTOH tastes really, really horrible. It has to be capped. I use 00 caps and a cap machine: https://www.allincapsule.com/
It takes 70 kg me 12 caps/day to get the study quantity.

We aren't the only ones who've read the study. NAC is suddenly in short supply. Just google. There are many sellers. My wife and I do 18g/day between us, so that's ~1/2 kg/month or 3 kg for the 6 month study period, except that the effect isn't permanent, meaning it's more or less a lifetime commitment. I see that entrepreneurs have also noticed and are starting to market all-in-one substances, presumably at lower doses and higher costs.

Note that this has no effect on youngers - they don't need it. It only works on olders, we gut-shot and crippled ones. 1 month into it, I think it has an effect. I'm sleeping better, much less getting up to pee in the night (!?), and I've stopped taking Saw Palmetto. I think I recover a little faster. No apparent effect on performance, as expected.

Assuming you have clearance from your doctor to start training again... I suggest getting a cycling computer if you don't have one already and use Strava to track your rides. Set an easy mileage goal for yourself to start and then increase it by no more than 10% per week...Ride 4-5 days per week Within 3 weeks, you'll be addicted again...

If riding around the East Cape doesn't get the juices flowing, I am not sure what will. I did your whole coast once and it was stunning, just gorgeous.

I'll come down and train you up proper.

I can see how this is a challenge.

I don't know if this will help you, but for me, if there's ever a motivation challenge, it's getting myself out the door. Once I'm out the door, the ride will take care of itself. So there are times when I tell myself that all I have to do is get out and ride - with no distance or speed goals. I can go down to the nearest bridge over the river and come back (that's about 4 miles RT).

Once I'm out and riding, with no particular goal in mind, likely as not I'll go longer and further than the little bridge loop.

So riding frequently, even if it's not far at all, will likely grow organically into riding frequently and for greater times and distances.

For motivation, I don't know. I use TrainingPeaks (premium account) and lay out a schedule of workouts maybe 2 weeks ahead of time, trying to increase my CTL by about 3 units a week. So then I have a schedule to work on. If I don't do a workout, it changes to a nasty shade of red. visual blame and censure. That works for me. I never do anything that I didn't plan ahead of time and incorporate into my schedule. No random rides, nada. Everything I do has a purpose and contributes toward some goal. Otherwise, why would I do it? I don't have unlimited time and no one has unlimited energy, so make sure that everything you do moves you in the direction in which you want to go. That seems pretty simple, though the application might be complicated and even require some study and research. That's all good.

motivation must come from within (intrinsic). Buy a new bike, join a group, read the obituaries every day

Share pictures of your tours on Facebook or Instagram, people comments and likes could give you some motivation.

OP raises a good question, how to regain motivation after a surgery or serious injury/illness when one reaches "a certain age"

I know I am struggling with MO. I broke 10 bones in a crash 3 months ago tomorrow. It hurts like hell to ride and I can't go far but the first 400 feet are the hardest. The first step, just take it. I don't even plan the ride, I just commit to getting out the door. Still, it isn't fun but the alternative isn't pretty. Normally, I would use the excitement or thrill of a tour or some event to motivate me but the thought of such a ride is too much or too hard for the mind to accept. I learned on TABR that when it gets really hard, just focus on one literally one turn of the crank at a time. So, for me....I just focus on getting out the door and go as far as I can. Some days it is 3-4 miles, today I did 13 miles in the blistering time of 1:12. You just have to think that eventually it will turn around and get good again.

Any tips or advice welcome.

I see from GhostRider62's post above that I really haven't addressed my basic motivation in stubbornly refusing to give in. It's that, however uncomfortable or painful, however inconvenient and time-consuming, however stupid it seems, the alternative to continuing to try is worse.

I say you split it into weekly baby steps, something like this:

Week 1

1. Start with an easy flat ride of 10-15 km.
2. Relax for a day
3. Another easy ride of 15-30km with some small elevation gain(~50-100m)
4. Relax
5. A longer ride of 30-50km with a higher elevation gain (~100-250m)
6. Relax
7. Relax

Week 2

1. A flat ride of 15-20 km.
2. Relax for a day
3. Another ride of 20-50km with some elevation gain(~100-200m)
4. Relax
5. A longer ride of 50-100km with a higher elevation gain (~200-350m)
6. Relax
7. Relax

and keep increasing the numbers as the weeks pass by.
I really hope you get your motivation back and wish you all the best, and good luck! :thumb:

A YouTube vid of Daviid Goggins is usually my go-to motivator. Feed your mind with as much inspirational materials as possible in the form of videos, books, and music. Especially look to videos about older amazing older people.

Fiddling with my bike fit helps regain motivation after some unfortunate incident.

If you are curious enough to try a different riding position and implement it on your bike then it leaves you no choice but to test that position by riding and most likely long rides to see how the new position does.

If you're actually going to do this, make sure you take a picture of your bike BEFORE you change the fit, or even mark the seatpost, rail, handlebar, etc so you can easily restore everything to previous fit if you end up not liking the new fit.