I had another early morning PT session on Wednesday. You would think a ride after a session with a therapist stretching, and ripping at my muscles and forcing me to work my core in a million different directions would have me super loose and ready to ride. Sadly, past experience has proved otherwise. Until Wednesday.
I was up super early Monday morning to go to a 3:30 AM physical therapy appointment (OK, it wasn’t 3;30 AM, but it sure felt like it). I was stretched, yoga-balled, pounded, rolled, BOSU-balled, etc., etc., in the ever failing attempt at having my back and hip feel normal during rides.
I ride my bike in the woods today, completing a full loop with moderated stoppage. Yes, there was some back pain. No, I wasn’t happy about that, but there was a “come to Jesus moment” when I realized which position on the bike felt the best (might need to get all Jaroslav Kulhavy with my position!). And yes, I was very happy to have completed another loop on dirt in the woods. I wish I had been more comfortable, but the trails were great, the morning air was cool, with some occasional light drizzle. Made for a good time.
With two straight days filled with work, stress, home issues, and 45th birthday angst behind me, I woke up on Friday anxious to get out for some miles and picture snapping. It took a while to get my mojo going, but eventually it all worked out.
Thursday was my birthday (thank you, but no gifts please). It seems I turned 45 years old, even though for some weeks I was convinced I was turning 46. Maybe that’s because my body feels way older these days? In any event, it’s been a long-standing tradition of mine to try to get out for a ride on my birthday to celebrate another of year of being healthy and fit enough to do such things. That my birthday plan… until it wasn’t.
I finally got a good night’s sleep in, and was enjoying the first day this week that I didn’t have to be up super, ass crack of dawn early. Then Wifey burst into the bedroom saying something like “THE CLOSING’S AT 9:20 NOT NOON!!! SHE TOLD ME NOON! SHE TOLD ME NOOOON!! IT’S IN MY CALENDAR!! I SWEAR!! Oh, and she said that the buyer wants us to remove some cabinets and some other shit from the garage.”
I got two days of dirt road riding in this weekend and am pretty sure that outside of singletrack I rolled on every surface imaginable: dirt, sand, gravel, pavement, shit pavement, and bombed out might be pavement, might be gravel roads.
To say I had a bad night of sleep would be an understatement–I tossed, I turned, I farted, I peed, my heart rate was about 150 BPM, and had some pretty lucid dreams. Had I had three cups of coffee, a hit of blotter acid, and an eight ball of coke I would have totally understood, but didn’t. Just a crap night of sleep that had me taking refuge in the guest room so as to give Wifey a rest from my tossing, turning, and farting.
Today was sort of a hodgepodge of getting some work done, house stuff, dad stuff, soccer club stuff, and life stuff. Somewhere in there I squeezed in a lackluster dirt road ride on the Boone with my camera. Part of me thinks that I probably would been better off just aborting the ride altogether, but after spending my Monday goofing off, eating and drinking poorly I figured I better do something to burn some calories.
After a good ride on Tuesday I was pretty optimistic about going a few miles further this morning. I mapped out a route, filled my bottles, said goodbye to B-Man and headed out. Down the driveway, into the cul-de-sac, out to the main road…. and meh.
