Dude. I was 13 years old when I rode my first mountain century. I've never known a time when I couldn't just jump on a bike and crank out as many miles as I wanted to do.
I last rode a bike almost 14 years ago when I crashed in front of my new wife and ended up in the ER speaking Chinese. Hung it in the garage, got back on the motorcycles, and planned on getting back on "any day".
"Any day" turned out to be two weeks ago. The kids got mountain bikes and it was time. I caved in and took my old Klein into the bike shop for a tune and jumped onto it expecting some hardship, but nothing near what I got.
Holy crap. I turn 50 this year, and you describe my experience perfectly, except for the puking at two miles because I'm too stubborn to stop sooner. I knew I was in terrible shape, but I walk 4-6 miles a day at a good pace at work and felt I had a pretty good baseline fitness state.
Nope.
Not even close.
Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, from here is UP. And I do mean UP. After two weeks of riding nearly every day, sometimes just the 2.8 miles to work and back, I'm finally starting to feel like I can push just a little to try to get stronger. It's mortifying to admit to anyone just how far I am from anything remotely called "fitness". But. I get on the bike in the 25 deg f temps in the morning and grind out what I can. Evenings are usually in the 30's and I've been trying to get some longer miles (OOOOoooohhhhh.....five miles! Big man!) on the way home; however, call obligations at work are problematic at best.
A coworker said it best: "Start at the start. Do one pushup until you can do two."
It hurts but at the same time feels very, very good. It's been a very long time since I owned the only pair of bike shorts in the county....Opened my mouth and told everyone I was going to do a half-century for my 50th birthday in May. Haven't decided yet if it's gonna be kms or miles....
Keep at it. Address the easy stuff--seat position, bike fit, etc--and just do what you can do, but do it as often as you can. Dig deep. Put in the 15 or 30 minutes in the evening if it's all you've got. It gets better.
Steve
...headed out for another 2.8 miles...