My little heart. No bigger than my fist.

In its tangle of veins and arteries.

I am working my way up a hill.

My little heart has increased its rate nearly three times.

160 beats a minute. Like a little bird’s wings.

I try to picture one beat of the heart.

Stale blood in the right atrium pushing into the lungs.

Refreshed blood pulsing out of the right atrium into the ventricle and on through the arteries, the arterioles, the capillaries, out to the millions of the cells of the body.

The tiny flash of energy in muscle cells as the oxygen hits them.

I have researched and ridden miles of bicycle routes along back lanes and minor roads.

I have learned to coast up moderate hills to harvest my energy and to stand in the pedals to get more weight behind them on steep sections. (But doing that wears me out very quickly.)

I have learned to measure my cadence and monitor my heart rate.

I can feel myself getting stronger.

I have started to plan long weekend routes so that I can monitor my performance. I make sure there are hills to climb.

Westwards of where we live there is a countryside full of steep, rounded hills, where lanes swoop down into coves and climb again through steep, angled ascents.

I have left little time for anything else. I have almost stopped posting on any other topic.

A bicycle is a very intimate piece of equipment. Your legs execute a movement similar to climbing, while your thighs are suspended by a wedge under your genitals.