Comparisons

Two years ago, I was at the Changi Airport waiting for a flight back to Cebu. I was with my wife, and I had just completed a 2-day orthodontic seminar in Singapore. It was a very late evening flight so I wasn’t the freshest passenger going home but I managed to keep my eyelids open. As we were called to embark the plane, I followed a line of folks ahead of me. From the corner of my eye I could see and hear a middle aged lady talking to my wife. The lady said, “He (meaning me) should jump the line. He’s a senior citizen, right?”

I didn’t know how to react but I think I was dumbfounded! Is my age really that transparent as SiCellA? As we took our seats and fastened our seatbelts, we couldn’t help but laugh. Here I was, thinking that I looked younger than my age when some nosy passenger noticed that I really looked my age. Unfortunately for that lady, she guessed wrong, because I wasn’t due to be an official SC two months later.

As a competitive cyclist at my age, there are things that I can’t do which I could do before and things I can do now that I couldn’t do before. And it’s all part of the aging process. As Steven A. Smith used to say, “ nobody has ever beaten Father Time”.

One of the most telling things that I couldn’t do now is look back when I’m on the bike. I can’t rotate my neck that way I used to and this is a problem when taking a right or left turn during a street ride or looking at my competition behind me during a race. I have done a ton of neck stretching but nothing helped. It has come to a point that I will stop at the sidewalk and look at the traffic before making a turn.

Another thing that I lost is my flexibility. My bike fit allows me to flatten my back in an aerodynamic position. Now, I can’t flatten my back even for 60sec. This has led to a different bike geometry. I am now more upright to relax my back.

On the flip side, I know that I am a better athlete now than twenty years ago. I think it has got to do with structured training. I have a coach now and even though my riding and training time are less, my efficiency is higher and better. For the past two years, I have been on the podium more than the last two decades.

Better training also allows me to race better and longer and therefore, it allows me to execute my racing plans when before I’d be happy just to hang on. I remember that I used to do 200-250km a week of on the road training before, but now, I’m doing like 80km of training a week.

So why is it that I feel better now than before? Honestly, I don’t know.  But I think it has got to do with gratitude for my experiences and who I am and the acceptance that sooner or later the good things will come to an end. So before I hang up my cleats, I’m going to enjoy what I’m doing and try to stay healthy as much as I can.

How about you?