Monday evening the illness that B-Man picked up while camping last week took over my body; I was less than thrilled. I slept about two hours Monday night as post-nasal drip ran down the back of my throat like a river of sludge. Good times, good times.
This past weekend shouldn’t have been filled with as much slack as it was, but slackers gotta slack, and that’s just what I did on Friday and Sunday. Thankfully between those slack-filled days I got out for 32 miles of dirt road riding on the Boone. The ride was short, the ride was good, I didn’t take many pics worth a dung heap.
Now here we are at the beginning of another week, my attention has tuned to getting some rides in and I’m fighting off a cold–brilliant.
Hoping to get outside for something tomorrow whether it it’s in the woods or on the road.
Later.
Thursday I needed to try (try being the key word) to catch up on the stuff that I neglected to do on Wednesday, so I opted for a short, foggy dirt road ride north of town. Knowing how slack I am I assumed that the ride would suck given that I spent most of Wednesday in the saddle traipsing through the Michigan woods–thankfully I was wrong.
With Brennan off on a camping trip with his school as of this morning and Wifey out-of-town on business again until late Thursday night, I pretty much had nothing to do today. So, after I got B off to school/camping, ate breakfast, drank 62.3 ounces of coffee, dumped out two to eight times and came to mental grips with the fact that I indeed had nothing to do, I decided to head down to ride some of the North Country Trail.
My last ride featured forty-seven miles of sandy roads, crap pavement, steady winds, unusually hight fall temperatures, dehydration, cramping and a semi bi-annual bonk due to suck. Fast forward four days of slack to today, and my ride featured ten less miles, firm dirt and gravel roads, little wind, perfect early fall temps, plenty of water and good legs. If last Thursday’s ride had me feeling like Fredwardian moron, this one had me feeling like a cycling god. Then I remembered that I only rode thirty-seven miles with about 800 feet of elevation gain. Whatever, for a few seconds I WAS a cycling god!! I’ll take that feeling over the bonked moron feeling any day, even if it does only last a few seconds.
Happy fourth birthday to Jake (the dog)! My furry, snoring, smelly, farting, friend that I seem to spend more time with then any one human these days. He drives me crazy some days, but I still love him.
I’ve read things over the years in regards to diets, er, “lifestyles” that say if you follow a healthy lifestyle for 80% of the time, you can stay on the right track. I am pretty sure over they years I have done just that, especially in my mid 20’s through mid 30’s, but slowly I started making the WRONG choices 80% of the time.
While Wifey has been out-of-town on .gov business this week I did everything a proper father/person should do, and that I do anyway (for the most part): Made all the meals, did laundry, got B to soccer practice, made sure his homework was done, mowed grass, did the shopping, did the dishes, took the trash out, ate properly, didn’t drink booze, smoke crack, shoot up, kill anyone or solicit prostitutes.
Given all that clean living I REALLY thought that I was up for a larger than usual (but not THAT large) multi-surface ride today. Sadly, my want to putz around taking photos, an unforeseen detour, a lack of on the bike nutrition, wind, deep sand, and higher than usual September temps turned me into a gelatinous heap of bonked suck praying for a passer-by to shoot me down like a gimp dog.
A leaky pipe in the ceiling above the Stankment’s Man Cave (actually belonging to a boy) meant that my ability to leave the house was at the mercy of a plumber, and my Wednesday schedule (or lack there of) needed to be adjusted. Any time spent on two wheels would need to be moved to later in the morning/early afternoon, and mileage would be minimal. It was the perfect day to say I was too busy to ride, but I was not going to pass up the opportunity to ride in near perfect 75˚ temperatures and brilliant sunshine. Not when I know all too well that by this time next month the air will have a distinct chill to it, the winds will start cutting to the bone, and base layers and riding jackets will once again become the norm. A ride HAD to be done, even if it meant it had to be a mere 25 mile Better Than The Trainer Ride™ on dirt and gravel roads north of town.
Always dig a good farm truck.
Late August and early September it was gloomy as hell here in Michiganderburgh. I swear we went nearly a solid week at one point without seeing the sun. Most of the time our winters aren’t even like that! Thankfully that has change over the past few days have been it’s been gloriously sunny. Today it was more even glorious ’cause after four days of slack, I finally got back in the saddle for a ride.
