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.
Roughly twice a year I don a pair of chamois-less shorts and running shoes and head into the Not-So-Stankment™ to do some heavy flirting with the weight bench and treadmill.
It’s been raining for nearly all of the last 24 hours and the dirt roads are surely a muddy, gritty, drivetrain killing mess, so today marked the start of said flirtation.
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.
At the end of my last post I mentioned that I was getting ready to head up to MMCC to ride some singletrack. I did, it was fun, and unbelievable that it happened nearly a week ago. I got sidetracked, then did other stuff, then got busy, then got sidetracked again. In this post I do some catchup with riding and life, mostly with the use of photos.
The week thus far has been void of major miles.2 There has only been one ride so far and that clocked in at just over 29 miles. There were also two 3 mile interval runs lumbers on the treadmill due to time restraints, weather, and a twist of end of summer ennui.
I recently went on a five-day stretch without riding and to be completely honest I really didn’t miss it, until I did.
After Wednesday’s crap 16-ish mile ride I took Thursday off the bike and just goofed off and got caught up on some stuff.
By Friday I was feeling better mentally and ready to ride, but could have used better legs. I got a half way OK ride in and took some photos, but that was about the extent of it.
After Sunday’s ride, I entered a two-day period of nothingness. Other than catching up on some stuff, getting some house chores done, and another doctor’s appointment there was not much going on. Well, I guess there was the rodeo on Tuesday night. Yeah, you read right, Mr. Artsy-Fartsy, Smiths listening, left winger, shaved legged bicycle boy went to a rodeo.
The promise I made to myself to get back into the routine of riding and writing was short-lived. The riding part held up, but I fell short with the writing. I got caught up in processing photos from last Thursday night’s Alma MTB Time Trial, riding, taking and processing my own photos from rides and a rainy Saturday hike. There was also some bitterness and depression, too many beers, and bidding farewell to my friend Mike at his memorial service on Sunday.
