Nothing in my life escapes God’s notice. I pray for guidance on everything, and that includes my physical fitness efforts. This is His Temple I’m trying to maintain.
There is more to this than meets the eye. On a purely human level, I am aware my lifestyle will change for the simple reason we are entering an economic depression. That it could include a significant political change is is almost certain. Specific changes are hard to predict, but any effort at general fitness will pay off. You have to get in shape to get into shape, so to speak.
I believe I am as close to that as I can get. While I still have those old urges to push and workout long and hard, I’m getting less response from the flesh. I don’t get as much recovery, and it takes longer. At some point, you have to choose where to invest your efforts, and I find cycling of far greater utility right now. So, I have been investing more in cycling as opposed to running. Instead of three upper-body workouts each week, I’m cutting back to two. The other things in my life carried by conviction demand more time, so I’ll just try to keep what I have in terms of fitness.
Because I still have the mountain bike, that means my trail-building efforts will shift a bit. Instead of running trails, I’m looking at riding trails. Albeit sand is good exercise for running, it’s hard to run on, and even harder to ride. I’ll be avoiding sand patches, and trying to keep the trail in the vegetation. Instead of preferring open areas, we will be aim to explore patches of woodland with less underbrush. There happens to be quite a bit, but it means exploring and mapping (mentally, at least) and aiming for a good ride, instead of a good run.
Elements of that difference would mean switchbacks instead of running straight over grades. It also means less clearing of ground cover, because that preserves traction and stability of the soil, preventing washouts. In our previous efforts, we were simply extending the use of very rough trails left by four-wheelers abundant in this area. We’ll aim for paths too narrow for them, but smoother. When we cross deep, soft sand areas, we’ll try to add some sort of dead fall vegetation or gravel to firm up the track. There is plenty of both around here. We won’t need to mow grass so close, since it’s much easier to negotiate on wheels than on foot. In the end, there should be a lot less intensive cutting and more effort in making the trails longer.
Something tells me we’re going to see a huge revival of cycling in America. Even with gas prices dropping, people simply have less money to spend, and more time.
