Mid Life Crisis

I keep catching myself referring to people slightly older than me as "middle-aged".
Then I stop for a moment and realize that indeed, I am a middle aged guy.
Genetically speaking. I am most likely on the downhill side of my life. My Father bucked the trend of my paternal line and made it to within a month of his 78th birthday. His Father died at 67. His Grandfather at 68.
In two months I will be 39. So IF I live to 78 I have fewer days remaining than past.
For some reason recent weeks have been full of reminders of the passage of time. My time specifically.  Watched the Kurt Cobain documentary. I remember hearing he had killed himself from Chris Comer in Newspaper class my senior year of high school. That was 1994 kids. Bill Clinton hadn't even "not had sex with that woman" yet.
Each night recently I have been watching the final shows of David Letterman. I have been watching Letterman since 1990. I remember because I moved into a downstairs bedroom of my Mother's house and escaped an enforced bedtime. I felt like I had become an adult. That was 25 damn years ago.
I bore you with this because I am reaching for the reason that I am so utterly out of shape.
I have been riding since my last post. Not quite like I should. The man gear has been feeling better. Only occasional pain which doesn't seem as bad. But I am finally getting out. The SHIT weather we have had lately has not helped. Mountain biking has basically been backburnered until probably sometime in late August. It rains every, damn, day.
What I am finding when I ride is that I have gotten much worse than I had suspected. So slow. So off. This morning I rode to Timp Cave. It is a good metric for me. It is a quick little run I can do and not be late for work. If I am shooting for Strava glory and finish with my eyes bulging out of my head I am historically under ten minutes. This morning was not, that, way. While I finished with eyes bulging and bile in my throat I dare say my time was comfortably over ten minutes. My shame has not allowed me to upload my rides to see where I actually stand. I am banking them on my Garmin and hope to upload a bunch of them in a few weeks so I can see how far I've come.
The best part was coming home and jumping on the scale. I am now up 5 pounds since I started "training". When I decided it was time to get started again I was nervous because I had crept over the 190 mark. Two weeks ago, I was 193. This morning I was 198. Two pounds away from my all time highest weight. The freaking Deuce.
I am seriously beginning to doubt that I am capable of finishing the Crusher in July.
Which really would be hard to handle for me. I have never had any delusions of what I am in that race. Pack fodder at best. At worst I am a sad, doughy middle aged guy hoping to be capable of finishing. But I am such a fan of the race and have talked about it so much to people that not finishing due to fat and lazy would just be embarrassing.
Shit.

Starting....Now.

Well. It's springtime in Utah. Usually this time of year I am itching to ride every chance I get and working hard to get somewhat race ready.
Some years are more successful than others.
This year has been different. With the difficulties of 2014 behind me I was enjoying winter with a new toy. I jumped on the fat bike bandwagon and was getting a few rides in a week in the dead of winter. It was fun and I thought it was going to make for a killer headstart on summer.  An extremely dry and warm winter put an early end to that season and there I was in spiritual limbo. Still enough snow on the trails to make them sloppy and unridable and not nearly enough snow to make fat biking fun.
Fair enough, I would wait for the normal season to start. No rush.
In February I had another rash of shit luck and found lots of excuses not to ride the road or take road trips to the sun and dirt.
Chief among those excuses has been what doctors have generically termed "Chronic Testicular Pain". Literally this spring has thus far been a pain in the balls. After a general practice physician, two surgeons and two urologists all took turns juggling my nuts. The final course of action was to do nothing.  I have been told that this is a common malady and surgery frequently makes things worse not better.  The prognosis is that the pain usually subsides after about a year.
A...YEAR.
I am now four months in and while I haven't seen a significant improvement I have seen changes that make me think things could improve. My genetic pessimism makes me think they won't, but only time will tell.
While the pain has not been debilitating it has kept me off the bike. Not because riding makes it worse or has any effect. It is like having a headache that only occasionally goes away and frequently plants my ass on a couch for a few days at a time. Not bad enough to miss work but enough to make me not want to do anything else beyond my workday.
As a result, I have about 100 miles in this year.  No shit. 100 miles.
In good years that is my weekly minimum.
Today however, I have had enough. I am fast approaching critical mass. The dreaded "deuce" is in sight and if I don't start riding I will soon be fatter than I have ever been.
So tonight I went out and dusted off the road bike.
I intend to ride in the morning. And hopefully the next morning. And the one after that.
Although I am not quite as fat as I have been in the past, I am less fit than I have been in years. The only race I have signed up for this year is The Crusher. It is two months out. Time to get cracking or I won't even be able to finish it.