How do you get back into the riding habit after months off?

[p nut]

Originally Posted by rwsaunders

I'm too old to be getting up at 6:00am on the weekends so that I can get a couple of hours on the bike while it's cold, wet and nasty out but I do it so that I can fit the rest of our family's activities in. I watch a couple of Rapha flicks about some folks riding through the slop in Holland and I motivate myself to ride...

Watching few bike-related flicks on Vimeo or other medium gets me motivated as well. Enough to get me up at 5am or earlier and go ride, so the rest of the day is free for the family.

Also, for the record, cold, wet, and nasty rides are some of my favorite/memorable rides. I love it.

[soulspinner]

Originally Posted by kirk007

and grab the miles where you can. Riding to work, if it is a possibility, is a nice way to make good use of that time. When our son was young i used to ride very early and be back in time to make everyone else breakfast (summer months - long seattle days).

+1

[rugbysecondrow]

Originally Posted by Kirk007

And grab the miles where you can. Riding to work, if it is a possibility, is a nice way to make good use of that time. When our son was young I used to ride very early and be back in time to make everyone else breakfast (summer months - long Seattle days).

This is good advice.

I would also add, nobody is keeping score. If you ride one day, zero days, 4 days...nobody cares. It is 100% up to you. There were some days when I was happy to just get a 15 min ride around the neighborhood. I would take lighted rides around the park when the kids went to bed. As your life changes you fitness might change, where you derive your fitness from might change. It might be more feasible to run 3 days a week for 30 minutes instead of a 90 minute ride. I just built a garage gym, weights, bike trainer etc, so I can get my work in while still being accessible around the house.

I say this, as a married father of three, don't let your riding be something which create resent with your wife. I put a great deal of effort into facilitating time for her to workout and balance time so we can both meet our needs. This should be obvious, but I know many men who don't do this and their riding, running etc becomes a sore subject around the house.

Cheers to many great years of happiness.

[benb]

At 4 you're actually through some of the worst of it assuming a healthy child... be thankful for that although 0-3 is pretty rewarding/interesting.

Just go out and ride and have fun and don't worry about. If you can't ride as much as you used to you really can go out and just ride hard.

Just be careful about child induced sleep-deprivation. My son just turned 3 last week and is out of the worst of it but it still happens. My big mistake is not realizing if your kid is waking you up all night or even once in the night your recovery is seriously, seriously hampered, especially if you turn around and compensate with coffee/tea to get through your workday. For me that meant tons of extra dependency to get injured if I went and exercised hard.

The squeeze the rock harder thing from non-parents is ridiculous.. I don't think they have any idea how busy life is with kids. I will use my previous reference to Peter Pan... Peter Pan has no idea what having dependents is like. No idea what it's like to get woken up in the middle of the night regularly, have to assist someone else with basic bodily functions, wash the mountain of clothes & dishes kids generate, fix toys, play taxi driver, etc, etc, etc.. and somehow thinks you can just tough it up and still act like you're single and carefree. Let's not mention feeling like you have next to no money to even do stuff like fix your bike.

I'm essentially busy from 5:30-6AM every day of the week till about 10PM.. the only way I get to ride during the week is playing hooky from work at lunch time. Weekends it's a little easier. So I just do whatever I can when I get a chance to ride my bike and try to have a good time. Racing is a good thing to forget about anyway as you can't take care of your kids very well if you have a big crash trying to win something worth nothing.

Joel Friel's cycling training bible sums up a lot of it recommending naps for serious cyclists. A little unrealistic even for a single guy who has a real job, almost unimaginable for someone working a real job and being a parent.

[PQJ]

Contrarian view: pick another sport, at least for now. With 3 young kids, 6-day / week ride schedule and long weekend rides are an impossibility. So I've taken to swimming. 30 - 60 minutes in the pool / day, with a short ride Saturday. Not ideal but gives me the fix I need at this point in my life.

[KWalker]

I was off the bike for 6 weeks straight when I broke my hip. I completely lost motivation. Even when I was cleared to ride I didn't want to. I wasn't allowed to ride outside for the first month.

At the same time I was going stir crazy. I was working from home far more than I needed to and just creating busy work to occupy my time. My wife commented that I was becoming far more irritable and I constantly felt tired. I had to exercise and was limited to riding so I bit the bullet.

My first day back was 1hr on the rollers at a whopping 220w. I made the promise to myself to aim for 3 days of riding in a row and then evaluate my enthusiasm. It didn't hurt that I had some good TV saved up to watch.

Day 2 I did 75min with 60 of tempo. Day 3 I managed 90 min and a mid-tempo. When Day 4 came I didn't even think, I just woke up and got on the bike. I felt pretty sore and out of it, but turned my 3 day challenge into a 7 day challenge.

After 7 days of riding daily I re-evaluated how I felt about the whole thing and my logic was what else am I able to do for an hour to 90min that has as much mental and physical benefit? Why did I spend all that time on the bike if it was this easy to just quit and never come back?

[spiderman]

Get out and see how far you can get in 30 minutes...
It's how I keep track of my very own personal
Hour record...right now...it's about to "bevs at the river"
In the summer it's half way to Edgar's ice cream shop!
...gets me out seeing what otherwise
Would be lost on me...
Who knows eventually your wife
Could get as hooked on riding as mine

[Zoodles]

Originally Posted by PQJ

Contrarian view: pick another sport, at least for now. With 3 young kids, 6-day / week ride schedule and long weekend rides are an impossibility. So I've taken to swimming. 30 - 60 minutes in the pool / day, with a short ride Saturday. Not ideal but gives me the fix I need at this point in my life.

Not to pick on your statement in particular but unless you have a backyard pool swimming or any other sport other than running must take more time considering the time it takes to get to the pool.

One can ride/race well on at least two 60-90 min trainer rides (and still be around the family) rides during the week and one more on Saturday, Sunday is an early 3 hr ride and back for breakfast. Wednesday and Friday rides are gravy (and for me are mtb bike rides with the kids). This works for me and when I need more I let my family know and know why. ymmv

Besides, both me and my wife like me better when I ride.

[Zoodles]

I feel like I should add...
1. That much trainer time is tough/masochistic. I only do that in the winter or cx season.

2. I find recovery the most difficult part of training. My family is non stop active and I have to take that into consideration. Now at 40 I consider a solid hike equivalent to a recovery ride.

[hellvetica]

Congrats to you. Kids are something very special. It's very hard to describe to non-parental friends. You definitely put yourself in the backseat of life when you have another life to be responsible for. But its the most special thing in the world.

We have an almost 2 year old (she'll be 2 this month). Her first year was really tough. She didn't sleep well, and that meant we didn't sleep well (4-5 hours tops per night). That same year I suffered a knee injury during a 400 miles MTB "race" ... that put me off the bike for a couple of months. I was really down over the whole ordeal and never having had an injury that affected my daily life so much (pretty hard to take care of a kid when you can barely walk down a flight of stairs).

Then last December I told myself "next year, I am going to ride every single day. I don't care how long or short, or how tired I am."

Guess what? I am at day 333 today, with 9100 miles, and over half a million feet of climbing ... don't get me wrong, there were definitely some really tough days, and I felt super burned out a few times. But I got past that. I forced myself to ride 1 hour per day minimum, on my lunch. Then some night rides, and long weekend rides. Switching up between road, singlespeed mountain bike, full suspension, and cross helps a lot too, to keep things from getting dull. And yes, getting up at 4:30am and to the trailhead by 5:30 is a common practice for me.

I am very lucky my wife hasn't ripped my head off.

So don't think its not possible, because it is. Just a kick in the ass sometimes is all you need, one coming from your own foot.

Good luck, and to us old bike dads.

[rugbysecondrow]

Originally Posted by hellvetica

Congrats to you. Kids are something very special. It's very hard to describe to non-parental friends. You definitely put yourself in the backseat of life when you have another life to be responsible for. But its the most special thing in the world.



We have an almost 2 year old (she'll be 2 this month). Her first year was really tough. She didn't sleep well, and that meant we didn't sleep well (4-5 hours tops per night). That same year I suffered a knee injury during a 400 miles MTB "race" ... that put me off the bike for a couple of months. I was really down over the whole ordeal and never having had an injury that affected my daily life so much (pretty hard to take care of a kid when you can barely walk down a flight of stairs).



Then last December I told myself "next year, I am going to ride every single day. I don't care how long or short, or how tired I am."



Guess what? I am at day 333 today, with 9100 miles, and over half a million feet of climbing ... don't get me wrong, there were definitely some really tough days, and I felt super burned out a few times. But I got past that. I forced myself to ride 1 hour per day minimum, on my lunch. Then some night rides, and long weekend rides. Switching up between road, singlespeed mountain bike, full suspension, and cross helps a lot too, to keep things from getting dull. And yes, getting up at 4:30am and to the trailhead by 5:30 is a common practice for me.



I am very lucky my wife hasn't ripped my head off.



So don't think its not possible, because it is. Just a kick in the ass sometimes is all you need, one coming from your own foot.



Good luck, and to us old bike dads.

Kudos on your goal, but that sounds terrible. Lol

Basic gist: fit in what you can. Do what works for you. Don't worry about others.

Cheers


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[Ronsonic]

This thread reminds me of one of the first things I learned about age-group racing. The podium is often determined by whose parents are healthy, whose kids are okay in school, seasonal employment demands and current ache and pain status.

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by KWalker

My first day back was 1hr on the rollers at a whopping 220w.

I wish I could do 220w for an hour. My FTP is below that, forget about actually being able to hold FTP for an hour.

[FlashUNC]

One turn of the crank at a time.

[bicycletricycle]

Sell your car? Then you will have no choice but to ride.