Fun & Fitness over 50

Back to the "FUN" of Fun and Fitness Over 50. It's the most important part. That's why I put it first in the title. Can't let myself get too torqued over the numbers which I have a tendency to do 'cause I am a go-by-the-book-go-by-the-numbers kind of guy.
Today was a beautiful, dry and breezy day in the middle of a run of hot, humid, rainy ones. I slept too late. I would have liked to do 30 miles but wound up having time to do only 18.
Yesterday, I mentioned that I wanted to get back into "training", whatever that is, but today it seemed too much like "work". I just wanted to enjoy the day. What I wound up doing is a series of sprints between signs. I would just pick a couple of signs or other landmarks up ahead and say, OK, when I get to the first sign I will sprint until the second sign. The idea was to go all out for about 10 seconds and then recover into zone2. Edwards and Reed say bottom of zone2 but that took to long going too slow at too low a cadence for my taste. So as long as I was below, say, 120bpm, I would consider that recovered. That's about 68%MHR for me. That made it more fun rather than counting off 10 seconds. Also my route went up a pretty good hill, not a killer for me, but a decent climb.
What I also found encouraging was that I can now go up some of those small hills in a higher gear rather than my largest cog. I'm going up on the 3rd cog and on some of the rollers even on the big chainring. Sometimes it actually seems easier than grinding my way up in the lowest gear. My heart monitor seems to confirm that. I try to remember to stand on the pedals from time to time too. It helps me to go over the hills without downshifting and it gives a little relief from the saddle.
I'm starting to feel like a cyclist! :-)