It's not been a good year for me so far, having been beset by all manner of colds, injuries, and other things that have made a big dent in my fitness. As I mentioned earlier in “The Silliness of Japanese Medicine-Dosage Rules” a couple of weeks ago, I topped things off with a horrible cold that put me out of commission for the better part of two weeks. The third course of antibiotics seemed to have finally done the trick, and now I'm looking to reclaim my life.

When in good form last year, I was about 86kg (190lbs) with little fat and a lot of upper-body muscle. But this bad year had taken its toll, and as I emerged from the bad cold a week ago, I found myself over 90kg (~200lbs) and without muscle. Ugh. Enough. Gotta get rid of the fat and start to rebuild muscle.

The upper-body muscle will be a challenge, since some nerve damage to my left triceps leaves them very weak. They're slowly coming back and have doubled in strength to about 30% of normal capacity, so at long last I can finally do a pushup, but it's a far cry from last year when I could do 50 pushups in as many seconds. I just have to wait.

On the other hand, loosing the fat is looking to be easier than I expected. Something about the recent bad cold changed my metabolism, and I was left without much apparent need to eat. I'd spend the day working, and suddenly realize in the evening that I'd not had a thing to eat all day, and even then wasn't particularly hungry.

In cycling, there's the idea of a short morning “fasted” ride, which means a ride done before anything's been eaten that day. The thought is that getting a good hour or so of exercise in the morning before taking in food will force your body to dip into its fat reserves.

Last Tuesday my metabolism was no different, and by noon when I decided to make my first short ride since the cold, I still hadn't had anything to eat. I did bring calories with me, expecting that the exercise would demand it, but I never felt the need during the 2½ hour, 40km (24mi) ride, and ended up not eating anything until dinner.

Well, that was fortuitous for my weight-loss hopes. I didn't expect it to continue for longer rides, but so far is has, over two more rides of 76 and 121 kilometers (47 and 75 miles). This post is about those two longer rides.

The first of those two was really interesting, as I explored a bunch of things that may or may not have turned out to be actual roads, which did indeed turn out to be very lovely roads. Here it is: @ Strava

It was a hot day, and it got even hotter as I passed through the city of Otsu:

I wasn't eating anything (I brought food in case I needed it, but it turns out I never did), but I was certainly drinking a lot. Over the ride, I drank 6.4L (1.7gal)!

Having gained so much weight, I had no illusions of being fast, so I was happy to be in exploration mode. In poking around a small village tucked into the crease of a mountain, I found a short but steep climb that ended at a quiet shrine...

It's the step climb up to it that made it a nice find for me. There was a second approach, by stairs:

Neither the shine nor most of the roads in the area we even on the maps that Strava uses, so as I often do, I spent considerable time carefully adding them later.

I then made my way farther east, where I wanted to investigate what looked on Google Earth to perhaps be roads. Usually these are either off-limit construction-access roads, or unpaved paths that I wouldn't want to take on my road bike, so I didn't hold out much hope, but the first road I found was lovely, in excellent condition, and devoid of people and cars.

I made a Strava segment for it, and surprisingly, it seems that I'm the first to ever ride it: Kamitanakami Shinmeishin Tunnel Climb.

The road ends at another road that emerges from under an expressway:

I don't know who this sign is intended for, since the roads in this area are closed to motor vehicles. Hikers?

These roads were in the middle of nowhere, and not connecting anything. In fact, one of them just unceremoniously ends at nothing.

There was a little plaque saying “Management-road End / Otsu Forestry Office”, so I guess that's less unceremonious than this road from a couple of years ago.

Descending back toward civilization, I came across what seemed to be a small campground, along with the entrance to a mountain hiking road:

The satellite view makes it look like a normally-paved road, and it probably is, but it's closed off to cars, motorcycles, and even bicycles. (Wheelchairs, however, are explicitly allowed, and the ramps I saw leading away from the parking lot suggests that they're serious about that, which is nice.)

For my part, I continued exploring...

The river had a lot of these pseudo-dams, and at one downstream I came across some people fishing...

According to a little plaque nearby, Johannis de Rijke oversaw construction of a little dam nearby. I didn't realize it at the time, but according to his Wikipedia page, he's the guy responsible for the canal from Lake Biwa to Kyoto, running right in front of my house.

It was a lovely day of discovery, and of energy that seemed to materialize from nowhere. I even made a PR on a five-minute climb that I wasn't even trying on. It was just a great day.

I had a protein drink when I got home, but otherwise didn't eat anything between dinner the night before and dinner much later on after I got home.

Two days later (yesterday) I did another fasted ride, not feeling the need to eat in the morning before heading out. This one was much longer: @Strava

As a cyclist it's convenient to use my phone to take pictures, but as a photographer it's painful. The iPhone 7+'s camera is no match for an old Nikon SLR, as evidenced by a this shot from the same location five years ago.

Not long after this spot is a short fast descent that's pretty safe to go full power all-out on. I wasn't planning on giving anything much power this day, but once I got there I had a hard time holding back, so I went for it.

The nature of the road makes it safe at full power if you have the confidence to handle that much power in the mild curves. Unlike most descents, the limit is not in the safety of needing to be able to stop within your sight lines, or of worrying about oncoming traffic popping around a blind corner. Here, only a lack of power or a lack of raw bike-handling skills limits you. I've got a long way to go in the bike-handling department, and lost my nerve on a couple of the curves, so I was all the more pleasantly surprised when Strava Live on my phone told me that I'd made a new KOM (fastest time ever recorded).

Sadly, when I got home and uploaded the real track from my Garmin Edge 820, the calculations had changed and I had merely tied my previous record (which itself is the current KOM).

After a while was another fast descent, but about double the length. I've done my best (2 min 5 sec) on three separate occasions, and hoped to finally break that barrier, but no, my time was exactly the same. Four times. I guess I've at least got consistency going for me.

Later on I came across the dam that seemed to be controlling the height in the lake...

Farther downstream is the huge Hiyoshi Dam, which has a circular walkway over its spillway:

Some time ago I'd made a Strava segment representing four laps around the walkway, jokingly calling it the Hiyoshi Velodrome. But somehow on this ride today, I had it in my mind that the segment was just three laps, so I gave full gas for three and then coasted. Still, I missed my previous record by just a few seconds, so next time I'll make a PR (so long, at least, as I can successfully count to four).

This “velodrome” has appeared on my blog before, here and here. I actually visited the dam once long ago on a family trip, chronicled here.

Anyway, I then moved on to the destination for the day, a waterfall I'd seen on a friend's ride last week. From the map it looked like there were two approaches, and I took what turned out to be a 10% climb to a reservoir above the waterfall.

I guess everyone else actually followed the plentiful signs down below, because Strava tells me I'm the first to ride up here. But I like exploring, and I like steep climbs, so I'm happy to be here.

There was a sign for the waterfall pointing down some rough steps, so I made my way

Once I realized that I was above the waterfall and that it was very tall, I opted against hiking down, so hiked back up the short distance to the road, and coasted down.

Then I high-tailed the 50km home, still drinking a lot but not feeling the need to eat any of the food I'd brought.

I made good time, so threw in a little bonus climb at the end, just before home:

The cemetery is something I normally see from above, such as in this view, but on the Rt. 1 climb out of Kyoto, for a moment you have this view, at least if you poke the camera through a hole in a chain-link fence. (The orange building at the top is part of the Kiyomizu Temple, seen in the first picture on this post).

I ended up drinking 7.2L (1.9gal)! That equates to 7.2kg (16 pounds!) of drink. Yet, despite all that, I lost almost 2kg during the ride. Most of it was water loss that came back by this morning, but not all of it.