I spent up through high school in a super competitive swimming environment (20+hrs/wk) then just burned out hard and quit and haven’t been in a pool more than ~10 times in the last 8 years. I competed in Olympic weightlifting for ~4 years and eventually just found that to be too similar to swimming (individual, always in the same gym, etc). Then switched to cycling and have been training and racing since.
Looking back I sometimes think “man I could be so much further along if I had been cycling this whole time”. But honestly if I started cycling as a teenager I probably would have just gotten into cycling just as much as swimming and burned out just the same. Training and ‘failing’ at those sports taught me a bit better how to balance the fun with the training. And I think swimming helped with weightlifting and both of those have helped my cycling. But if you aren’t getting paid for it then just do what you think is fun or interests you.
Maybe put some energy giving back. Work with kids. Or you may have unfit friends or colleagues, encourage one of them and ride a race with them at the back of the pack. My brother in law did that for me, I’m riding all the time now and doing TrainerRoad too.
Don’t worry I’m well involved at our club. Turns out I enjoy coaching, course building and race promotion, more than the actual racing these days. It keeps me in touch with the community and boy do we have a lot of laughs.
To the OP, if you do quit or dial it back a bit, have you considered whether you’d enjoy giving a bit back and passing on your knowledge and experience?
Sounds like you’ve raced a lot and at a pretty high level.
Plenty of youngsters / adults who are new to racing, out there who would lap up your insight and you could do an awful lot of good and make a positive contribution with very little time / effort.
Even if you just elected to once a month hold a 30 minute Q&A I think you’d be pleasantly surprised with the level of interest there may be.
Reach out to your local club and see if the race officer or youth development officer is willing to engage.
If you read back a bit you’ll see I’m very active in my club both with training the kids and in race promotion. We actually took a clean sweep of the youth podium at cx regional champs this year which was awesome.
