With B-Man and Wifey on a short jaunt to WPA for the July 4th holiday and me at home on Jake (the dog) duty, I was hopeful that the later part of this week would be filled with miles and smiles. Sadly it has been filled with suck, subparness, wind, rain, few miles and fewer smiles. Oh well, it beats not riding at all! Or does it?
Monday I was in full on Dad mode and my “workout” consisted of becoming a panting, sweaty, happy mess playing football soccer with B-Man for an hour and a half over at the local soccer fields (he continues to get better and better and found out today he made his club’s U11 travel team, woot!). Tuesday turned into a 3 mile treadmill run (with doses of walking) due to storms and 20+ mph gusting winds, and Wednesday was to be a day in the woods on the mountain bike aiming for 30+ miles. Sadly, that quickly turned into a quick 16 mile loop due to continued back pain and some “fuck the world” miserableness.
Today, I had plans for either a longish (for a 42-year-old with a bad back and motivation to do fuck all) dirt road ride or my standard 41 mile road ride, but unfortunately when I woke up it was raining and about 50 degrees. So, as I so often do, I said “fuck it,” rolled over, farted loudly, cursed my own retched stench and went back to bed.
An hour later I woke up and the sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I was caught in the middle of being happy and being disappointed. Part of me just wanted to lay in bed all day and avoid all human contact and responsibilities, and part of me wanted to ride. I rode.
I wish I could say it was awesome and I am so glad I went. However, I will just leave it at I’m glad I went. At just 25 miles, it wasn’t long, I didn’t feel all that great (fueled up with just one cup of coffee and an empty stomach) and the highlight of the ride (aside from the always fun, constant gusting crosswind) was taking a flat connector road (seen above). Even though I was going into a now gusting headwind, it was like riding with a pine scented air freshener shoved up my nose. Bravo Michigan, bravo.
And with that, what should have been three days of awesome riding turned into three days of subparness. On top of that, the USMNT lost on Tuesday (BOO!). Oh well, I still have three more days to get more subpar riding in, only two days until Wifey and B-Man are back and only one day until I can sit my fat ass on the couch and watch the World Cup again.
I am less than thrilled with my continued back and hip pain and after the holiday I plan to make an appointment with my chiropractor and/or doctor to get some x-rays or/and MRI done. SOMETHING is wrong and life it too short to not enjoy the ride (on a bike).
Photos: by me of course, it’s not like I have a photographer that follows me around. They turned out like shit, so I went all lomo on ’em and then added some light leaks to make them look even shittier than they already were, but now I call it “art.”