Tag Archives: Habits

More Lines…

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I have been drawing more lines in my life.

Meet the Pileated Woodpecker. This one brings a little color into my day from time to time.
I see him from my window as I work.

Mid-summer already! I need to spend more quality time with my keyboard. The spring was eventful, and my time hasn’t been wasted. Bird watching is a kind of default, as shown by the interesting bird pictured above. He likes the tree outside my window. I look for birds when I ride as well, and it’s amazing how many different birds I see from the bike, quite apart from the handsome woodpecker that visits me regularly.

I’ve been adding new lines to my life this spring. Fishing lines! I’ve also started to make headway in coping with changes to my activities. The last 19 years of bicycling have been glorious, but many of the people I once counted on to ride with have retired and moved on, and my training has been on my own. I don’t feel the drive to train. I ride for the enjoyment of moving through the landscape by bike, enjoying what I see and feel as I go. I think that’s a natural development. I still ride 3 to 5 times a week, but the mileage has decreased and as I write this, in the heat of the summer, it’s been harder to grind out the same number of miles I once did. 20 years of serious riding doesn’t just go away overnight, but the social aspect of those past cycling seasons has changed, and I’m changing with the circumstances.

Riding on the Oxford-Bellevue ferry across the Tred Avon river during the Tour de Talbot in June.

I look at it as an evolution. Last year I found myself talking to an old friend who gave me advice for my first century ride 18 years ago. She doesn’t ride those events any more, but she still rides. That feels like my direction. I could sing the blues about aging, but that would be giving up. I will never stop moving, stretching and following my interests. I will simply adapt as I go. I have centuries to ride this year, but next year I may not enter any long events. I like events, but shorter distances and slower paces sound good to me now. All that means is that my riding will enter a new phase. Events will take a more relaxed tone. I doubt anyone will criticize me for it! I’ve ridden events this spring and they feel great – like old times. When I’m back to the familiar, I find myself thinking of past years in autumn when the events were over for the year and I felt strong. I called those cool weeks “riding for the soul”, and I defined it by a lack of training pressure and the pure enjoyment of the autumn scenery around me. The pressure was off, the days were enjoyable, and my soul was nourished. I think in the end, when I don’t have training pressure, this is what I want cycling to become. I want that line in my life to have a more relaxed tension, take a different course, and present itself with a different style. I like the sound of that. Perhaps I’ve been changing for quite a while now, and my consciousness is finally catching up to my circumstances.

When I was a boy, fishing was a way to find some quiet and peace and solitude, and it gave me time to think and experiences to enjoy. Lately I’ve come back to it. I’ve had all the fishing skills I’ve needed since childhood, and I’m connecting to that childhood quiet time again. Even if I catch nothing, I still feel good about fishing. My freshwater ultralight and light weight fishing gear won’t net me anything big, but it makes even small fish fun to catch.

A healthy bass caught from Lake Elkhorn in Columbia, MD. He was gently released.

My favorite fishing lure is the simple inline spinner. You can catch anything on one. Including the fish pictured above. They’re good for panfish, bass and trout, and while I have no idea exactly what a spinner is meant to simulate, they can be amazingly effective.

An assortment of inline spinners. My favorite fishing lure!

Fishing clears the mind. It requires focus, and it’s a simple pleasure that I’m happy to indulge in from time to time.

To make a long story endless, I’ve been active, healthy and happy, and I’ve been making a few changes. I look forward to exploring new and interesting lines of thought and activity.

Goals, Setbacks and Changes

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The time between New Years and the start of Daylight Savings Time are the hardest days of the year for me. There are very few distractions, it’s cold outside and the days are short. My workouts are mostly indoors, spinning in place. The best thing to do at this time is to use the time the best way I can, and set goals for 2024. 

This year’s goals will be more modest than in years past because I’m getting older, and most of the people I used to ride with aren’t available anymore. Most of my cycling miles will be ridden alone. I can’t expect to keep up a fast training pace or plan my time the way I did 10-15 years ago. I’ll plan on riding events, perhaps half a dozen or so to keep me motivated. The goals this year don’t come with times attached. Just miles. This year I want to ride at least 2000 of them. Once the weather improves I’ll be riding 3-5 days a week. I don’t count indoor miles and I never have. (I know, I know… they should ALL count, but trainer workouts just aren’t the same!)

As for setbacks, I’ve been spending a lot of time in doctor’s offices recently. First, I needed a checkup, which came with changes to help control my blood sugar and blood pressure. Then I broke my nose in a fall – for which I got surgery. While I recover, I have been working on my diet. I am determined to get my blood pressure and A1C numbers in the right place. I also want to lose weight. This is the perfect time to start. It’s never easy to address concerns like these, but I am determined. I’ve tried to add good habits such as stretching in the morning to help my flexibility, and I’m proud to say the weight and blood sugar are both heading in a good direction! I know this doesn’t sound like a setback, but you can’t tell what medications will do to your exercise routine, and a broken nose is weeks worth of bother about simple actions like breathing! I’m just glad this happened in the winter. Anything that would hold me back during the good weather months would make it harder to reach my goals.

It is really difficult to change old habits and ways of thinking. I’ve been told that it takes three weeks to develop a new habit. I suppose that includes things like dietary and lifestyle changes, and you really have to commit to a change to make it stick. If I do my best, then come springtime I might make 2024 a very good year!

Coping with Change – using deliberate change to take the sting out of life’s disappointments.

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My photo album above seems like a chronicle of habits, but I need some new ones. the action camera on the left side of the photo is one of the ideas I’ve had to adapt to ever changing times.

I’m a creature of habit. Those habits, good or bad, have become locked into my life. I don’t manage change as well as I would like. The sad part of that is understanding that life IS change. Lately, for a variety of reasons, I’ve had to face some changes, and the discomfort I feel in dealing with them has forced me to think about ways to cope with change. It might be a good idea to start driving changes for myself. After all, many of the habits I’ve formed are the results of decisions that I’ve made in the past and adopted as habits. It occurs to me that one way to cope with change is to make deliberate changes to my own viewpoint and actions in response. It preempts the feeling that change is something that I’m forced to cope with. Change can’t be avoided completely, but once you’ve faced the initial shock of it, finding a way forward is the only answer. In my case, I have to find a way to set aside old habits, or use the change as an opportunity.

This morning I picked up a photo album that I enjoy. It holds photos of cycling events and friends, and it’s got a lot of memories in it. I thought about signing up for the Patuxent Rural Legacy Ride, a local event that I have always enjoyed. Since it’s already mid April and the ride occurs in mid June, I thought that the sign up page should be available online. I could find nothing related to it. Now this might be an error in searching for it on my part, but I couldn’t even find it on the calendar of the Oxon Hill Bike Club, which sponsors it. I could still be wrong, but it seems to me that if I can’t find a registration page two months before the event, then it probably won’t be held, or in the best case will be held later in the year. Since Pax (As I call it) has been one of my favorite events, I’ll miss it. Change has pounced on me again. The pandemic short circuited a lot of events, and some may not come back, but I have to accept that some of the things I have done from habit aren’t a certainty any more. What I need to consider is developing new habits. It’s less of a loss to consider new things to replace what had become a habit or tradition.

I’ve had a slow start to 2022. Between nagging pains, difficult weather and other concerns, I’m feeling less fit and motivated than usual. This doesn’t mean that I’ll give up, but I need to make some deliberate changes in my own behavior. As the weather warms, I have decided to lead some rides for my local club. that will be an intentional change. In addition, I’ve gotten a small action camera to use as I expand on this journal. The Insta360 Go2 is an interesting device, and I’m still learning the best way to use it. Later I may post more about it. By changing my point of view, and offering change to deal with change, I hope to alter how I relate to to things I’ve taken for granted and move forward with purpose. Replacing the habitual with something new seems difficult. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.