Cycling: The Ride of a Lifetime
Aspen has everything you need to enjoy the outdoors all year long. Summer time for me is cycling. The cool air in the morning turns to hot in the afternoon sun and if you are lucky a light shower to cool you off. Going in and out of the sun through the trees with views that would make Ansel Adams gasp for a photo. The lifestyle here in Aspen is evident by the share amount of cyclists you will see on any given day or time of day. Whether it’s the gruelingly monstrous and dangerous ascent up Independence Pass or the more pleasant but still mammoth Maroon Bells Aspen has it all!
Cycling helps build a strong heart and over all a toned cardio respiratory system for optimal health. Capillaries deep within the muscles that may not usually open for the faint of heart or average person are pumped full with blood. Circulation is a key component to longevity and health and as the heart becomes stronger it can pump 6-9 gallons of blood per minute compared to the 5 gallons per minute for the average person. This increase in blood pressure helps to move old dead and coagulated blood through the body to excrete and discard the old for the new. Lymph fluid that for average people pools up in the feet gets pushed through and back to the lymph nodes for cleaning. Cycling is like an oil change for your blood and lymph. Less obvious may be that our brains also get flushed with rich oxygenated blood, helping such things like memory acting like ginkgo biloba as the brain marinates in the red cells. Every cell in the body get the message that it is time to work harmoniously, creating a powerful homeostasis and optimizing longevity and health.
And the middle path was born! You do not have to be Lance Armstrong or Joe pro. You have to learn to be you and to trust yourself entering into harmony both internal and with nature. Staying in the 70-80% range of effort output gives us the optimal long- term benefits of exercise. Which help by building confidence and self-reliance. It is the sweet spot to keep stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine and nor-epinephrine (adrenalin) down and still raising the heart rate and building lean muscle.
The integrative way to approach this is to forget you are on a mechanical apparatus and become one with your machine in order to become one with nature. Getting lost in the rhythm of pedaling up and down hills becomes the meditation that unlocks the secrets to life. If you have questions about your life and need answers go for a ride. Remember that the ride is a type of freedom for your body and mind. Remember how it felt to get your first bike? The possibilities were endless as the mind fantasized and you rode away from home like a pioneer looking for adventure. That feeling does not have to end as we grow into adulthood. Setting aside our responsibilities or putting decisions on pause during our cycling time becomes a new freedom that brings about the playful kid within us. On the road we can massage out all of our thoughts and feelings about all of life and our connection. This is a new kind of integration between the world and our perception of the world. You can see the world differently from a bicycle and “when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change” (Dr. Dyer).
