After a few days away from home, it’s been nice to settle back in and to get some riding in. Monday’s ride was a quick loop north of town in the crisp morning air. Tuesday would bring spring-like temps to mid-Michigan, but would also bring steady winds with gusts exceeding 25 miles per hour.
If there is one universal truth concerning my “doing stuff” in the months of November through March it is that the size of my water bottles is reduced. Under the mid-morning August sun I might drain two large-sized water bottles during a ride, come November I’m either doing stupid workouts indoors or riding outside in the full-nip cold and, despite still being needed, sucking down large amounts of water is pretty unlikely. Thus I start sipping from a smaller bottle instead of big ass magnums. Whatever, it’s just an observation, moving on…
After a cold ride that failed on multiple levels on Friday, I reluctantly headed back out on Saturday to attempt some sort of redemption. Redemption was had, but just barely.
Friday was one of the coldest morning of this fall and pre-winter season. Temps at normal ride time were in the low teens, and warmed up to a balmy 19˚ by the time I finally pushed myself out the door to try to get something in.
After Wednesday’s lackluster ride which featured me working more on a jacked up shoe cleat and taking photos than it did actually riding my bike, I was hopeful that Thursday would be more fruitful in the mileage department. Sadly, it was not.
I was up early Saturday morning to let Jake (the dog) out. He took just long enough to do his business that I put aside notions of returning to the Chamber of Farts, got a cup of coffee and sat down to watch Spurs lose to Man U. I did all of this with the idea that I would not be riding. The gray skies, cold temps, and steady wind made sitting around watching soccer and drinking coffee until it was a reasonable time to drink beer just too appealing.
After multiple days of rain and mud the conditions turned optimal for a dirt road ride south of town on Thursday. While conditions were indeed optimal, it also coincided with our first heavy frost of the fall. Shit be freezin’.
The title of this post suggests that I am going to wax poetic about my ongoing fisticuffs with the “black dog,” attempt to sell you some sort of $19.99 faux copper-infused compression stocking snake oil shit that will dull the pain of your torn rotator cuff, or talk at length about the greatness of the song Cure For Pain by the band Morphine.1 But I’m not, I’m gonna talk about my ass. Again!
The second cup of coffee is now down my gullet. There is still much work to be done in the getting awake department and even more to be done in the wanting to be awake department as a cold rain pisses down outside my window.
When I woke up on Wednesday morning I assumed that I would try to do the same thing as I did the day before–ride dirt roads, take pictures, burn off some of my beer gut. Sadly, the dark clouds and drizzle made it hard for me to get mentally up for a ride but for some reason, however I was drawn to the idea of stomping around for a few miles with my camera at Deerfield Park.
