Changing with the seasons can put fun back in your training.

Despite the fact that I have run more than 50,000 miles and am quickly catching up to that total in cycling miles, I truly didn’t set out in life to become an endurance athlete.

Growing up I played baseball and loved it. Our team won the city championship in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

My brothers and I also played soccer. Both of my older brothers were All-County, one a fullback, another a goalie. If our family had stayed out east it’s a pretty sure thing I’d have been a skinny but tough outside back or forward who could run forever. But we moved to the Midwest where the high school had no soccer or baseball team. So I moved into running.

Basketball was a sporting passion that lasted through my senior year in high school. But by that time I was the top runner and year-round training was becoming popular among the best runners in the state. Plus I’d skipped basketball camp that previous summer and figured out early on that was a mistake in terms of hoping for playing time. That is when I became a “full-time” runner and continued that course with year-round training in college cross country, indoor and outdoor track. Post-collegiately, I followed the same pattern for several years before retiring from competitive running.

But those early sports interests stayed part of my year-round training for years and years. Rec softball and baseball. Pickup and league basketball. Then in my forties I played indoor soccer to keep fit all winter and it was a blast. All that sprinting around and running into people was great stress relief.

Two ACL injuries put an end to all that fun, because that type of injury pretty much closed down opportunities to play basketball, tennis or any other sport involving sharp stop and go action. So I’m grateful to run and ride, and enjoy the feel of speed and release of energy in those two sports. But with that singular focus comes the risk of getting stale.

Time for a break…

In all those years there were times when running got stale and tired. Then I’d go back to those other sports. Playing basketball all winter, sometimes for six hours straight in a sweaty high school gym, really is a good way to keep in shape. Plus all that ballistic motion cuts down on the risks of overuse injuries from running in a straight line all the time.

Cycling has its rhythms and obsessions too, of course. The road bike comes out in late February if weather allows and gets ridden through late October or even November in warmer years. When snow flies I generally get the mountain bike out and crap around for an hour or two until it gets too cold to ride. I’ve ridden in some really stupid conditions, to be honest. Snow over the tires. Icy, dark streets. But when you gotta ride, you gotta ride. And when you gotta run, you gotta run.

There were years when I barely missed a day of running. I have run in temperatures as low at -27 degrees and as hot as 104 degrees. That’s a 131 degree temperature swing. All so I can feel fit. You must be careful, however, to not let running or riding completely run your life.

Beware the jaded athlete

It can all start to mix together though when months slide into years, and years slide into decades. One can get lost in the doing and not enjoy the process. And I believe it is always important, if we are going to appreciate life, to enjoy the process. That is the philosophy I preached to my children to encourage them to live in the moment and learn from the things they experience.

Let’s be honest: when you’re riding and running year-round without breaks for other sports it can get a little stale now and then. Suddenly you find yourself finishing rides without remembering what you saw. Or you run the same route 3 times in a week without realizing it.

Here’s a funny thing about that sort of rut. If you don’t break it up yourself with a conscious effort to vary your routine, life has a way of taking care of that on its own.

You get sick. Stub your toe on the bed in the early morning hours. Pick up a calf or a knee injury. Get a series of flat tires that cause you to miss riding a few days in a row. You know, shit happens randomly only it doesn’t feel so random when you actually appreciate the break.

No such thing as an accident?

I have this weird philosophy that there’s really no such thing as an accident in life. I think we make ourselves sick at times to give our minds and bodies a break. Oh, sure, my recent accident on the bike was the product of some uncontrollable forces. I’d never heard of bike wobble and would never wish that experience on myself or anyone else in the world. So it was not some intentional plot to take a break from cycling, or even a subconscious at work trying to get a little time off.

No, those kinds of accidents are what they are. Bad luck. Stupid fate. Shit circumstances.

The difference is in how you respond to a forced break like getting sick or getting injured. If you piss and moan your way through 4 weeks of inactivity, you won’t really be refreshed when you return to your favorite sports. Even if you were in peak form, as I was when the accident happened, you simply must take the position that a break can be a good thing. Otherwise you’ll drive yourself nuts.

Athletes are often surprised how quickly they rebound once they return to training. It may take months to get back peak form but that should happen anyway if you’re applying training principles to your workouts that point toward big events.

Making the most of a forced break

A forced break is a time for introspection. A time to review why and how your running and riding is improving your quality of life. If you need to recalibrate, perhaps spend more time funning around on the mountain bike than pounding away day after day on the road bike, then a forced break might give you time to think it through. Plan some fun. Break up your routine.

A forced break from running and riding really can be good for you. To take a line from Christian faith, there are times when you have to “let things happen” rather than trying to make them happen. Maybe that accident or illness is really trying to tell you something. That it’s time to take a fork in the road rather than sticking that fork in yourself when you’ve overdone it.