I ride

Other than the time when I had health issues back in 2006, I could not remember being off my bike for more than a week. I sometimes chuckle at some friends who during this holiday season find it hard to get up from bed, slip on their team kits, strap in their helmets and their shoes and go out and ride. Me, I could not find a reason not to ride, and so I ride.

I ride not to get fit but to be better than I was yesterday or the last race  and even though there are not a lot of road races these days, I imagine myself always getting ready for any circumstances. Fitness is just a byproduct of racing.

Some people ride to get fit and hope that the chances of getting sick would be lesser. But guess what, some people who don’t smoke end up with some fatal disease. Last week, a friend of mine, Oliver Estrella, from Luzon, succumbed to lung cancer. The guy was 35 years old and as fit as a horse, yet after feeling feverish last October, he was diagnosed with the Big C.

There are no guarantees in life, and with exercise and a healthy lifestyle, its not a slam dunk that you won’t get sick from diseases that are supposed to be avoided when you go out and exercise. As I have said no guarantees.

Take for example Jim Fixx. If you are 30yo and under, or if you are not a student of running, then you probably won’t know him. Fix helped jumpstart the fitness revolution and wrote the runners bible, “The Complete Book of Running” back in 1977. The book sold over a million copies and thrust Fixt into a celebrity status. He would appear on TV talk shows to promote fitness and would go on to write a few more books about running.

Before Fixx started running, he weight 214lbs and lit up two packs of cigarette a day. Ten years later, when his book came out, he was 60lbs lighter and had stopped smoking.

Well, seems like a fitness fairy tale but it wasn’t.

Seventeen years after he started running, Fixx was out for his morning run when he had a heart attack and died.

What happened to Fixx is not unusual. It happened to our friends who we thought was leading a healthy life. My professor, Dr. Lulu Torralba, died from lung cancer when clearly, she didn’t smoke and would speak her mind when someone smokes around her.

So what does this tell me? It tells me that starting today, I would not ride to get fit but to ride to be better and to ride for the moment. I ride not to get sick but I ride to enjoy what I still can clearly enjoy.

Obviously, I don’t want to go out young nor do I want to live more than I need to. Unfortunately, its not up to us to say.

So for 2016, I will still always be competitive and enjoy riding while I still can. And most importantly, I will ride for the moment.