Monthly Archives: September 2010

Fitness? Blood?

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You know the problem with having good fitness, or for that matter, bad fitness? Well, not really bad fitness, but feeling bad or not riding well. The problem is that when I’m riding good, that’s all I want to do. It is easy to train hard. It is easy to do anything. But, when I’m riding bad, nothing comes easy. Everyday life is difficult, so it is hard to accomplish any hard task.

I think it has something to do with your blood. I posted earlier, I think I might have been riding better at the first of March than I am now. That was after nearly two complete months of not riding. I know that I have a lot of miles on my legs and I don’t lose form very quickly. But, that doesn’t explain being able to ride at race pace without any racing. Or training at race pace.

Why I think it has something to do with your blood is that when I’m riding well, I can do almost anything physically great. When I have a great day training, I can plop down on the floor and knock off 100 sit ups without any stress at all. But, when I’m riding badly, I might only get to 30 and then can barely struggle to 50. It isn’t a training thing. It is a muscle supply issue. Your muscles are getting supplied everything they need to function properly.

Right now, I”m just going mediocre. Yesterday I went for a 70 mile ride to Lawrence. It was in the upper 90’s and super muggy. Heat index off the charts. I was pretty good until 10 miles to go. I met up with Bill and had to stop almost immediately. I drank a 32 oz. Coke and a 32 oz. Gatorade. I felt better riding into town. When I got home, I weighed myself and was still 9 lbs. light. That was after drinking over 4 lbs. of liquid within the last 1/2 hour. That seems a little extreme. I’m still 5 lbs. lighter than yesterday. Maybe I was over hydrated? Probably not.

Turning 113 years old Sept. 5th

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I got a note from Michael Aisner that he’d be in Topeka this weekend. Tom Schuler’s grandmother is turning 113 on September 5th. I helped her move out of her house in 1997 when she was 100. Boy, does time fly.

It used to crack me up when Tom would say that he talked to his grandmother and my name would come up. Tom would tell me that Ella would say that maybe he should ride with the Tilford boy and that maybe he could learn something. Even though Tom had been on a Olympic Team and had won the Professional Road Nationals in Philadelphia.

Anyway, I’ve been following Ella Schuler’s progression on the supercentenarian list for a couple years now. She started in the upper sixties and now is officially the 12th oldest human on the planet. Michael always stresses how rare it is to meet someone born in the 1800’s. I never thought much about it because I grew up with my grandmother and she was born in 1892. But, now, meeting someone that was born in the 1800’s, that person has to be at least 110 years old. That is pretty old, even by today’s standards. Anyway, I thought I should again post Michael’s video a that he made last year about Ella, in celebration of another birthday this weekend.

ELLA @ 112 — THE MOVIE from Michael Aisner on Vimeo.


The list above is of the oldest documented people currently living on the planet.