Tomorrow is my 71st birthday. Riding your age in miles on or near your birthday is a thing for many cyclists. I did it for quite a few years. With all the long rides I was doing, it wasn’t a particularly hard challenge. Of course, the older you get, the more of a challenge it becomes. I had written in this blog that I wasn’t so sure about 80 miles at 80, but that 70 miles at 70 would be easy. Of course I was wrong. 70 miles at 70 last year not only wasn’t easy, it was impossible. I had a severely cratered heart valve, and was waiting to get it replaced. The valve was so bad that my doctors had advised against exercise until I got it replaced, and I wasn’t riding at all. And I still had such severe shortness of breath from the severe COVID I’d had, that even without heart valve problems, I don’t think I could have managed 70 miles. So there was no birthday “Ride my age” ride last year.

And it’s been one health problem after another since. I’ve mostly recovered from the pneumonia I had in January, but the left knee problems that have limited me since December are still here. My knee has gotten a little better in the last few weeks, so I thought maybe it was time to start trying some longer rides. I had not done a ride over 40 miles since my severe COVID in October, 2020. I had built up to some 40 mile rides last fall, but limited myself to 30 mile rides or less ever since my knee problems in December. I decided I wanted to try a 50 mile ride last week, and that Tuesday, I took off and rode 50 miles. I was thinking about the possibility of riding my age this week, so wanted to see how my body handled a 50 mile ride. I had a lot of knee pain the last half of that ride, and decided there was no way I could ride my age this week.

But I reconsidered after I thought about it. That Tuesday, I rode my usual 50 mile route out to near Athens. It’s not a super hilly route, but it’s much hillier than my closer to home Mabank route. And the wind was terrible that day. I rode against it while it howled out of the southeast going out, then it changed to the southwest as I rode back, and I was still riding against it. I thought that if I rode a flatter route, on a less windy day, and took my time doing it, I might be able to ride the 71 miles. So that’s what I did today. I rode my Mabank route as a loop. It’s not completely flat by any means, but the inclines aren’t steep at all, more suited for a balky knee than my Athens route. I loaded the bike on the rack on my pickup and drove to a starting point near the loop. That way, I could start earlier than usual (I knew it was going to take me a bunch of hours to finish this ride at the easy pace my knee required), without fighting the bad morning traffic near my house, plus if I needed to bail out of the ride, my truck would be nearby.

I started right at 8:00 am, and did my ride. I hate riding at such a slow pace, but after soft pedaling for so many months, even if my knee suddenly improved, the rest of my body is now de-trained to the point that it wouldn’t be capable of much more speed than that anyway. So, I took my time, babied my knee, and finished the ride shortly before 2:00 in the afternoon. That’s a terrible time for a 71 mile ride, but considering that I wasn’t even able to ride my age last year, I’m just going to raise my clenched fist and celebrate completing today’s ride.

I ended up riding 390 miles in March. 250 miles of that was on the trainer indoors. Now that milder weather is here, I’d like to do most of my riding outdoors for the next few months. Next month is my annual checkup with my primary care doctor, and considering how long the pain in my left knee has lasted, I think that will be the time to get a referral and see what I can get done for it. Hopefully, I won’t lose too much time off the bike. I’d sure like to get stronger on it again.

Today’s route.