My overall fitness is nowhere near what it was when I was racing, partly because my back has become a problem I need to deal with every day and partly because, after 20+ years of doing endurance races pretty much all over the country, I've kind of been there/done that for most of the things I wanted to do race-wise and to continue doing it would be repetitive at this point. And unfortunately, unless I can address my back issues, the stuff I haven't done yet is probably off the table (I was definitely planning on a Tour Divide attempt for a while, but I'm just not sure that'll be an option given that each morning I have to test whether or not my legs can even support me before I get out of bed now.) And I'm okay with that, but I so still want to be able to enjoy the rides I can do, so I try to eat right, do body weight and balance exercises, and lately I've been trying to double my daily water intake. I've never really been about structured workouts -- kind of like
@jimvreeland I always just figured the best thing for the kind of riding I want to do is to just get out and ride a lot. That is a little harder now because some days I just can't get my back to cooperate, but luckily that isn't all that frequent. If there is one thing I would say has had the greatest impact on fitness for me, it'd be the fact that I can't really do yoga anymore. Between the pandemic shutting down the studio, and the progression of my back issue (which is not muscular so I can't really fix it with yoga), I really haven't been able to take any classes and I definitely notice that, especially in my legs. I've been trying to replace some of it with foam rolling, but it's not really the same. Yoga was always really hard for me (apparently, I come from a gene pool with the general flexibility of concrete blocks), but the payoff was undeniable. Not having that has forced me to reckon with all the niggling aches and pains you might expect from a life spent riding a SS in the rocky northeast without really having a consistent method of keeping them at bay.
And, yeah, at some point I'm going to actually wake up to the fact that my choice to only ride SS for more than decade of 150+ mile weeks off-road is largely responsible for all of this, but that's kind of moot right now because (1) it's still fun to do and (2) even if I wanted to get a FS geared bike, it's going to be a while before I could get it anyway. But even if I do that, I'm not sure if I'll be all that concerned with regaining race fitness anytime soon. I think net of net, I'm willing to give up that sharp end fitness for good if it means I can become more well-rounded in other things - I've never been a "natural athlete", so if I wanted to be good at something, it had to have all my focus. So I'd give up other activities to work on being a better rider, and if there is one thing the last year forced me to do, it's reconsider that approach. It's not a dramatic epiphany or anything like that - it's just a realization that it's time to make room for other things as well. I'll still enjoy throwing down with my friends who like to ride hard, but I don't think I'm going to be as focused on being the one throwing punches in those rides any time soon.