My Name is Jonathan and I am mid 40’s. Life has generally treated me well. In my 30’s life was maybe just a little too comfortable, happy married with 2 kids and like all pushy parents I had transferred my sporting desires onto my kids – I was no longer going to achieve anything in my sporting life, so I figured it was time for my children to take up the mantle. Besides it’s a lot easier to shout at your kids than actually get out there and do something yourself, about the only time I sweated was when I was on a hot beach or when the wine was not chilled enough whilst having a barbecue on a hot day.
Inevitably the weight, ever so gradually started to increase – nothing too dramatic and certainly not anything bordering on obese (I am far to vain to let that happen) but never-the-less an ever growing “mid life spread” started to happen. The only trouble is, in mid life even a few extra pounds is harder to move than a combine harvester sans wheels in wet cement. This coupled with being diabetic since the age of 19 meant that life was definitely bordering on the not too healthy. I have always found it quite easy to go without food (though not the accompanying wine – another vice) so I just cut down to one meal a day. Weight problem solved after about a year with no real effort, but I was as unfit as before and with an even greater loss of muscle.
When I was a young buck I was a devoted sportsman – I competed to a high level at school boy athletics and some of my 200m records still stand to this day. How was it that I had become so apathetic to sport? Well to tell the truth it was not only the comfortable lifestyle but also I carry a fair amount of underlying upper body joint problems – bit too much of a gym bunny as well!
I just couldn’t find a sport I could see the point of – I needed something practical and also I wanted something that would not let my over competitive nature out of the bag (more on this later). I also wanted something that I could do with my wife and kids, that I could treat as a hobby as much as a sport. This coupled with what I have already mentioned in my introduction led to the choice of biking.
So that's me – I hope this introduction will engender some kinsmanship with you the reader. We all have different ways of getting there, but mid-life creeps up on us all and we seem to have come to the same conclusion as to how to deal with it – this I assuming to be so as you have read to this point.
So I intend to use the best thing most people in mid life have - a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at ourselves. I hope I will give so useful advice in a non-frightening and non threatening way about what I have learnt and will learn about getting back in the saddle (or razor blade as they seem to be now).
