I woke up fairly early on Sunday morning, tended to Jake (the dog), made some coffee, and sat down to watch sub-par footy. As I sipped my coffee and thought about the day ahead I knew one thing: I did NOT want to ride. Well, scratch that, I did not want to do a paved road ride.
Earlier this month I lamented the fact that after a pretty sweet February of warmer weather and riding, March had come in like a lion with snow, ice, rain, and a lack of riding. Now here we are on the last day of the month and March is still twerking its wet, cold, slushy ass cheeks in the face of central Michigan like a trailer court queen drunk on wine coolers, wooing her step dad into paying for that dolphin tattoo she wants on her ankle. Thankfully I found some time–in between those unwanted wintry twerks–to get some miles in.
There was a time, now almost literally years ago, that me talking about riding dirt meant one thing– singletrack. These days most of my miles spent on dirt are of the dirt road variety. Something that I find to be a hexagonal tug of war equal parts a challenging, loved, creative spike to the vein, and a depressing, sad, pathetic state of my cycling life. The latter is rarely thought of unless I start to think about the days of racing–or just plain ol’ riding–my mountain bike in the woods for long periods of time.
I got behind on this digital shit show, so playing some catch up here with a bit about yesterday, today.
Since Friday’s crap-tastic ride in the relentless wind I have done the following:
Saturday: Run, strength train, slack hard, hang with Wifey, drink beer, play video games.
Sunday: Take B to practice, slack harder, drink beer, play video games.
Monday: Catch up on web duties for various side/freelance projects, run, strength train.
In other words I didn’t ride, but 2 of the 3 days I did some “stuff.” Then 2 of the 3 days I did things to undo the stuff I did. But just think if I wouldn’t have done that “stuff.” The good “stuff,” not the bad stuff! We’ll call it all even… ish. This is why I don’t lose weight.
Finally Tuesday I rode. I rode pavement, and I rode dirt. Or as my friends at Terry’s Cycle say #morethanpavement.
My plan for Tuesday was to not ride. My morning was spent doing laundry, writing a post for this crap site, returning emails and phone calls, taking care of some email issues for a website I maintain, and catching up on some other semi-work related things; all the while taking comfort in the fact that I was not out riding in the extremely crisp and breezy morning air. Until I was.
I woke up to a layer of slush on Saturday morning, so the morning was spent doing Saturday type stuff, followed by a trainer ride and strength training in the basement of the Cul-de-sac Shack. Sadly, if I had just waited a few more hours, the temps rose, the slush was all but gone, and I could have easily squeezed in a road loop. But I didn’t, ’cause I’m dumb.
After three days of indoor workouts, I finally escaped the confines of the Cul-de-sac Shack’s underground bunker to pedal out of doors. However, given that at ride time it was about 27˚ with 10-15 MPH winds blowing out of the north-west, it took a LOT of self loathing, guilt, and promises of meaty lunchtime rewards to get me into the multiple layers of cold weather gear and out on the road.
Goddamn you March…. Goddamn you straight to hell. Too much? Probably, but who cares.
Despite its brevity, February in Michigan can be a long, depressing bastard of a month. February lodges itself in between the death-like acceptance of winter that January offers and the hopefulness of spring that March provides. Most often it’s bitterly cold, windy, and blanketed with ice and snow. However this February was not “most often.” We had several days of temps between 45˚ and 60˚, very little snow, and just a hint of ice at the beginning. While I am the first to admit that it should not be 55˚ in February, I am in no way going to complain about the ability to log over 265 miles as I attempted to jump start my fitness and hopefully some weight loss.
All last week as I “ran” on the Dreadmill™, and spun my wheels going nowhere on the trainer, I set my mind to go down to the Cannonsburg Ski Area to take photos at the fat bike and snowboard races they were hosting. I figured I could use the practice and getting outside would do me good.
