Old 11-17-22, 10:40 PM
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Carbonfiberboy 
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Originally Posted by rsbob
No se habla quitting.

There is a local gentleman (former road racer) that has set 99% of the PRs locally, that I rode with during the summer. He is at the end of the 65-70 age bracket, and is still dedicated to cycling, lifting and running. He said the wheels came off when he hit the late 60s but he still hasn’t and won’t quit because he loves cycling and has resolved to keep at it.

There is no way I can still ride 20 MPH all day long like I did in my 30s and accept that. If I have an average speed of 16 MPH over 30 miles with 2000’ climbing, I consider that good. In my 30s that would have been considered by me, rather pathetic. Just having trouble developing acceptable of the fact that I will deteriorate faster and unrecoverable as a part of aging. Have a tough time letting that go even though so many have said they now enjoy cycling more because they don’t put artificial constraints on cycling. Have to get over that psychological hump and develop acceptance, but until then, will probably fight like hell to improve on what I have to lessen the fall. I know there are no good answers to that unless people can talk about how they came to terms/acceptance. Could be about maturity too.
OK. Just saw this. I've thought a lot about it. As it is said, "when the going gets tough the tough get going." Or the corollary, "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Which latter refers more to politicians than anything. Aging, the going does indeed get tough.

I guess "resiliency" is the word. One takes stock, sees what's weak, attempts to make that better. Of course it's a losing battle if you compare yourself to what you used to do, but you don't do that. You don't compare yourself to anything or anyone. You just try to do your best, whatever that is. You look for your limits, just like you always did. You accept that they aren't what they used to be and move on. But really, the battle is just what it always was, you against your limits. I haven't developed "acceptance." Why would I do that? I won't accept anything less from myself than my best. True, compared to my younger self, I'm slower. But I try just as hard as I always did. I was always slower than many other riders. Now I'm also slower than my younger self, but what difference does that make? It's the same thing.

I've changed some of my emphases. I discovered that more of my training time needs to be spend on strength training. Strength is key. It's easy to lose track of that and wonder why one is so much slower. I'm working to get back to deep squatting my bodyweight. I think that's important. My pedals are starting to feel light again. I don't recover as fast, so my weekly training load is less but my legs feel great anyway. Every year is different now so I'll just have to see how it goes, hope for the best. Hopefully, this cardiologist period will have a good outcome and I'll be back out there leading rides on our tandem again and doing some Alpine skiing this winter, as usual.
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