Wheeeeeeeewww

I annoyed myself this morning. (This will surely not surprise the many other people who are annoyed by me. After all, if I can annoy others so effectively, why shouldn’t I be able to annoy myself just as well?)

I had a ride of a specific length in mind, and I knew exactly where to ride to in order to get those miles in. Or, at least, I thought I did…

Even before I left, I knew it was going to be a hard ride. While I was still in the house I could see the trees dancing in the wind, and it’s always worse out on the open road. Oh, well.

I rode the first mile through the neighborhood and then turned onto the main road. Whew! This was not just any wind, this was the sort of wind that might carry you to Oz if you aren’t careful, and me without a little dog along for the ride. Well, that’ll teach me to hit the road unprepared.

It really was tough out there. It was the sort of day when you just put your head down and pedal, then you look up after a few minutes and find out that you haven’t actually gone anywhere.

After a little while I turned and had a crosswind instead of a headwind. That’s always a bit of relief. It was about three miles later that I realized that I had turned down wrong road to get to where I wanted to go. I considered turning around for about a half a second but decided that I had done too much work to get where I was and didn't want to go back.

That was okay. I've learned my way around this part of the county by now, and I knew that I could go this way and then go that way and make a big loop over here and end up at my goal. It would take me way out of my way, of course, and make the ride longer, but I was okay with that.

Or so I thought.

When I finally to my designated turn around point, I was actually feeling pretty good. I remembering being surprised how quickly I had gotten there. (My idea of quickness, mind you, was not actually based on looking at a clock. It was just based on how I felt.)

I turned around and was suddenly going twelve miles per hour faster without doing any more work. (That’s how you can tell it’s windy.) With the wind finally at my back, the trip home went in record time. As I was nearing the end of the ride, I remember being surprised at how great my legs felt.

That was when finally checked my computer and discovered that “the long way” was actually a little over four miles shorter than the way I had intended to go. That’s four miles shorter one way, so the totally ride was a good eight miles shorter than I was expecting. Well, no wonder my leg felt so good!

Well, it ended up being a good ride, anyway, just short.

I resolved to do better the next day. And I will, too.

See you on the road.