I wanted to write this post and tell you about my recent cycling, and to mention again how it can help us with our battle with anxiety and other mental health issues.
I have found a route around the local lanes and roads that is quite flat and so not too
challenging, and it is 12.2 miles long. I’m not using it as a demanding keep fit cycle, more of a time trial, and at the moment, I have a big psychological barrier to overcome. My first effort came in at 1 hour, 5 minutes and 48 seconds, and so today, the target was to get under the 1 hour time and that psychological barrier, but I didn’t do it after thinking during the cycle that it might have happened.
However, it was 1 hour, 2 minutes and 39 seconds, so bettered by over three minutes, but still over two and a half minutes off the target time, so what do I do?
Well, it’s simple, I will go out and try, repeatedly until I do beat it, because I know I can, and injuries aside, I know I will. It may take a couple more attempts, but I’ll do it because I know where I can improve, use the gears different and push harder.
Some cyclists will be reading this and smiling, possibly laughing because, let’s face it, this is only approximately 12mph, and that isn’t fast. Here are some comparisons, and according to an internet search, the average speed of the Tour De France winner is 25-28mph, including uphill, downhill and everything they do. During the Olympics, I joked to my parents that the road racers were cycling faster uphill than I do downhill, and I’m probably right.
Another internet search found this: Most riders can average a speed of about 15 mph on a one hour ride. A good rate for a beginner is 10 mph, but you should be able to get to 15 mph pretty quickly. If you start training every once in a while, you could get your average up to 18 mph, but training regularly could get you to 22 mph. Well, I find that hard to believe, only because my good friend, a very keen cyclist, reckons a good average is 14 mph. 22 is certainly too fast an average, and I only do that going downhill, never mind averaging.
So I’m a little bit off an average speed just yet, but I take a few things into consideration, I am fifty-eight years old, I’m not a cycling fanatic, I don’t ride a road bike, although I have road tyres, and I’m not overly fit, and tipping the scales at around fifteen stone means that’s a fair weight for the old bike to carry. So whilst this is nothing special, it’s not fast. And I’m sure Bradley Wiggins could give me twenty minutes start and still beat me; I’m not overly concerned.
We all have different goals and accomplishments that we enjoy trying to achieve, and this is mine. I’m not going to go and spend £500 on a new road bike to knock five or even ten minutes off my time; my old bike will do me just fine thanks, I am at my level of competition, me against the clock at my age with my bike, for those who can go faster – fair play to you!
But the main thing is how this helps me to feel good, yes, even a little twelve-mile
cycle. I wrote a few posts ago about how I went out cycling one morning to help my mindset, which worked wonders and was only 5.6 miles long; the reason for doing that route was the uphill climb at the start that got the legs working and the mind elsewhere, half the distance, half the time. So I cycle for different reasons. I’ve not had to drag myself out of bed since to cycle and sort my head out, which pleases me. Not because I don’t have to cycle uphill at 6.30 in the morning, but it means, more importantly, that my head is okay!
And so, as I write this some nineteen hours after switching my cycling app off and realising I’d failed, I have succeeded. After a late night and a few beers, I woke up this morning thinking about the cycle, and I decided to get up and give it a go. I told my wife I would either see her in five minutes as I’d decided it was a mistake or in about an hour based on previous times – it was the latter.
As I often find when I go out on my bike, I wasn’t really in the mood, but no sooner am I a few hundred metres down the road and I am in the mood, or should I say ‘zone.’ And I just keep going, head down, legs pumping.
And some 59 minutes and 37 seconds later, I was switching my phone app off with a smile on my face. As mentioned, our objectives don’t have to be gold medals or world records; we make our own goals based on our own abilities. Yes, it’s pointless cheating ourselves, and we need to make them realistic, but whatever level we perform at when we achieve a target, it makes us feel good, and it is a massive help with anxiety and undoubtedly other mental health issues.
This has set me up for the day, and as I write, I am thinking about my next target for the 12.2 miles; surely it has to be under 55 minutes, but I wonder if I can, and I wonder if I ever will. I know that there is only one way to find out, and that is to keep trying over the next couple of months whilst the weather is good – we will see.
I mentioned the medication I was given for my mood swings, too high to too low in too short a period of time; it was horrible. Well, the mood swings are still there for sure, but nowhere near as bad, often as high but never as low and over longer periods. The day I had to go out on my bike early on was because of my mindset. I was undoubtedly on a low, maybe feeling sorry for myself when I didn’t need to.
The last few days, I have been back up on a higher level, and all is good, but my little cycling exploits have undoubtedly helped, both in the work needing to be done to do the cycling and the exertion, and then beating my little sub-hour target.
Cycling like writing takes me away somewhere else, and why we need diversions, so imaging cycling for an hour and coming home to write for an hour or two, I am totally lost, and my mind is a long way away from the horrible place it can go to?
And that is how things are with my mind that has suffered badly. The little things we
can do can help in a big way; let’s be honest, you wouldn’t think that a twelve-mile cycle could do so much to help your mental health, but it does. And that is why we need to find the things that help, and we need to keep doing them, even like me today. I even told my wife I might be back after five minutes. Still, I kept going, and it is important that we all keep going, doing the things that helps to take us away into another little world where anxiety doesn’t exist, and, and more importantly, we need to stay there for as long as we can?
As for my cycling world, as well as my sub-fifty-five-minute goal for the 12.2 miles, I have spoken with my cycling friend and asked him if we can try to complete a fifty-mile ride one day quite soon, and he said we could.
This is no time trial or quick sprint; this is more about endurance. The most I have cycled in one day is twenty-four miles which I did a couple of weeks ago, and I thought fifty was the next big psychological number to go for. The twenty-four miles didn’t cause me any problems, and I know it won’t be an undulating cycle, if it’s local, the lanes and roads are quite flat, my legs are strong, and it will be okay, and I believe the attempt will be made in August the way things are going – I’ll let you know.
But please, please keep busy, keep active and keep your mind away from the bad place that is anxiety or other mental health-related matters. There are many options and many different things we can do to help us do this, but going out for a good hard (in my world) 12.2 mile cycle is certainly recommended; it definitely helps.
Thanks for reading, and stay safe