I’m solidly in that camp too ducky. Three years ago I was smashing out times at lystie at the three hour point of a ride that put me inside the top 100 for comm games laps times. Can’t fathom that performance right now. I’ll return to that level of fitness again I’m sure. This time I’ll stay there and it won’t be a fleeting 8 month peak. But fuck it might kill me getting there now I’m 40.
The black dog is a chunt, sorry to hear it.
New(er) car has resolved the car dramas I hope.
Yeah, not-worn-out bike-hauler has taken care of that side of things - already done two blissfully trouble-free interstate trips in the six months I've had it!
I just need to keep kicking the nasty little mutt in the nuts and get out there and get my fitness back. I'm finding on my regular group rides that towards the end of our 30-odd km rides that I tend to have the freshest legs and still feel pretty comfortable, so that's helping shut the little bastard up.
I've never been anything remotely close to an elite-level rider in terms of speed, at best a mid-pack B-grader, but my strength has always been to find a groove, and then once in it just chug away for hours on end. I just can't string as many hours together as I'd like at the moment....
One highlight I didn't mention because it's still in progress is that I made a big step to becoming a National-level Race Officer for sailing, which is a bit of a big deal, because it will enable me to officiate at International-level regattas (you're allowed to officiate at one level above your current accreditation because you need to have experience at that higher level to attain that accreditation). After spending a whole weekend (thankfully revolting weather, so I didn't miss any riding!) in a classroom going through the very fine ins & outs of high-level race management, my long-time mentor and one of the course instructors rang me and cheekily said, "I'm very disappointed, you only scored 88.5%. Well done!". I needed 75% to pass as a National RO, and 60-something for State-level, so I comfortably surpassed both targets. Now I just need to go and run a couple of National-level regattas with an assessor hanging over my shoulder to complete the process......