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When do you have time to ride? Get your kit out now and do 20min on a turbo at lunch time.
No, not later. Get it out now.
Don't make me come over there..
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Also, what you doing with these bad boys? Go jump some curbs...
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16216101/ -
I’m so out of the habit of fitting training into the day that it now seems alien and too much
This plus your back issue is quite familiar to me, minus the kids. I got into something resembling a routing by starting small, really small. We're talking any kind of exercise, however small, whenever I could. 2 minutes between Zoom meetings? few bodyweight squats and some press ups. Just taking advantage of little bits of time wherever I could and just forcing myself to move, in any way, reminded me that I like any kind of exercise, feeling sore muscles and being out of breath, it's good for me and I need it!
Before long I was managing 20 minutes of exercise before jumping in the shower, now I appreciate you'll say 'i don't have 20 mins, kids will be climbing all over me, etc.;' but it's just what got me doing something after a long period of nothingness. The trigger benefits of doing even tiny bits of exercise gave me the kick up the arse to make it a priority.
Be kind to your back, having chronic back issues is an absolute fucker.
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I can sympathise with this because I've been in a situation which had some similarity with yours.
I suddenly and unexpectedly became a single parent (children 12 and 14 at the time). It wasn't my wife's fault btw, but it happened.
My racing career was going quite well (for me, anyway) at the time, but this event put a stop to it, at least in the medium term, but not for ever.
It's proverbial that 'In life, it's always later than you think', but in a cycling career this is less true than in most areas because it's possible to go on competing, especially in time trials, much later than in many other sports.
You haven't mentioned your age and this does seem significant. In my own cycling life I have had three separate phases of competition: youth, early middle age and late middle age. It's possible you may end up with something similar
When things start to improve, you might think about other roles in the bike game, rather than just being a competitor. For example if you've done any road racing, you might become a commissaire or in time trialling there's a desperate need for organisers (also true of road racing).
For my part, in the past few years I've done a fair amount of race reporting which I've found has kept me in touch in a way that pleases me more than trying to maintain race fitness in old age.
So however difficult things seem now, it's likely they will improve. When children are born, they can seem like a life sentence, but after they've grown up, you find it hard to believe how quickly it happened - I hope this doesn't sound like a platitude, but it is a common view among those with independent children.
So, be patient, try to keep ticking over, be ready to come back when life allows.
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@Ottomanotter
In a total mojo black hole at the moment. I’ve had a really bad run since Easter where a year or so of lockdowns and looking after three young kids during the day then working all night (no more than four hours’ sleep) finally took its toll. Had a series of illnesses (basically just pure exhaustion / burnout) then a serious back injury (getting one of the little ones out of the bath, but caused by crouching over kitchen table on a little laptop for hundreds of hours a month during the lockdowns).
I’ve gone from being a competitive time triallist and FTPing around 360 to barely being able to turn a pedal and being 15kg heavier.
I know I just need to get back on the bike and start again, but I can’t seem to do it. I’ve been so consistently on the bike for so many years that I’ve always been building or tapering, but now I’ve got such a mountain to climb I can’t seem to just start. I’m so out of the habit of fitting training into the day that it now seems alien and too much (on top of kids / work etc).
Anyone got any tips that have helped for just shaking yourself out of this kind of slump? Not being on the bike is ruining my mental health, but I just can’t seem to put my kit on and get the fuck on with it.