In attempts to get my head out of what Wifey so often refers to as The Bell Jar, I forced myself to dawn six layers of gear and go for a ride at Mid today. The result? Well, it was nice to get outside and out of the gym and basement, but the conditions were not all that ideal. It still helped a bit though.
The trainer; instrument of physical and mental torture to some, hated by many. Me? I’m OK with it.
It’s the eve before Thanksgiving Eve (also known as Tuesday) and the day/eve, was a fucking mess. We got an ice storm last night, so B-Man’s school was cancelled today and I needed to get the snow tires back on the xB. Not to mention I had a million other things to do as we prepare for our trip back to Western PA for the holiday. Thankfully (or not) I had the chance to squeeze in 40 minutes on the trainer. 40 minutes that would have been better spent guzzling a vodka/sleeping pill/Lexapro cocktail instead of half heartedly spinning along and going nowhere for 40 minutes of a planned 60.
Don’t get me wrong, I am anxious to see my father, brother, sister, and in-laws, but mentally I would rather suck on a gas pipe than have to endure four days of explaining why the magazine went bust and I am mooching off my Wife’s brain and (thankfully) its associated income with no gainful employment in sight. But… such is life. I am very thankful. A slacker, but a THANKFUL slacker.
I guess you could call this Welcome Winter Weekend. Some say “welcome,” I say “fuck it, I hate winter.”
Today was a perfect day for a road ride. Naturally, I went for a mountain bike ride.
You would think that I would have remembered the gusting 40+ mile per hour winds that rocked Michigan last Sunday and Monday. You would also think that I wouldn’t be forced to use an iPhone to take pics because I forgot my real camera on my desk. Go ahead and think those things, but you would be wrong.
I find it amusing sad how long I can ignore the fact that spring and summer are gone and now fall is on the cusp of doing the same. Looking down the trail and seeing nothing but brown, bare trees is sort of a repeated slap in my fat face to wake up and smell the decaying bung of autumnal death and keep riding as long as I can. For soon winter will be bending me over a barrel of dark cold ass depression and thrusting its unprotected frozen phallus of hate in my general direction.
This fact was made all the more real today when at the ride’s end I stood in the parking lot talking to some friends and was getting hit in the face with a smorgasbord of gusting wind, leaves, rain, sleet and snow. Then the sun came out. Michigan weather is as psycho as mountain weather…. we just don’t have mountains.
Colder temps are closing in fast, my weight is out of control following the 2 week government shutdown induced depressive beer bender I went on, and I would like to be on a new bike and racing more in 2014. So, I made the commitment to go back to my gym (Morey Maury Ballstein’s Fitness Center) to mix things up, burn some calories, muscle up some flab, stay out of the wind and cold a few days a week and actually interact with people outside my home every so often.
This week’s weather has been less than desirable, and for whatever reason I have had a bitch of a time dodging the rain since Monday’s mountain bike ride. Today however I somehow got my ass out the door, on the road and back before the cold, steady rains returned.
It’s only mid-October, but with the leaves falling, you can’t help but think that the snows will be here soon enough. Time to yet again formulate a winter time survival plan for fitness and sanity… and to look at photos of cyclists who are way tougher than I was or will ever be.
The photos in this post are from a road ride I did in the early spring of 2013. It was a chilly 42 degree morning; damp, foggy and of course had a bone chilling, Michigan breeze that contained scents of moldy corn husks, mud and manure. Continue reading