Okay, I'm Tired Now

A couple of days ago I did close to 25 miles by accident. Today I decided to do 25 on purpose. My route, an out and back, was not exactly well chosen, but it put me back on roads that I used to ride regularly. It was not well chosen because, while it has a few nasty little hills on the way out, the worst hills are all in the last four miles on the way home. Or maybe that means it was well chosen.  You might as well save the best for when you're tiredest, right?

I decided to push the pace some and hit a few of the early hills hard. You know, for me, I mean. Back when I used to ride this route, I had a turn around point at ten miles. I found myself coming up on that turn around point and realized that I was feeling great and was amazed at how quickly I had gotten there! Then I realized that I didn't quite remember the route accurately and that turn around point was still at least 3 miles away. What a downer.

Then I came to the town of Eureka. I love the signs in that town, because it looks like the people who live there are so happy to find everything. Eureka! City Limits....Eureka! Church!.....Eureka! School...

More hills. You have to understand that I climb hills in exactly the same way that a hippopotamus walks a tight rope.

Actually, I'm not sure what that means. It kind of sounded better in my head.

What I'm saying is that I really need to work on going uphill.  Today gave me plenty of practice.  I did not excel.

I saw two nice dogs. What made them nice was that one of them ignored me completely and the other one simply watched me ride by with a little doggy grin on its face.

I found myself at times cruising at the sort of speeds the bike club used to ride at.  I didn't stay at those speeds for a particularly long time, mind you, but I was there for a little while.

Here's how swamped in lactic acid I was at one point. I had to stop at an intersection and wait for some cars to go by. About a second after I turned the corner I glanced at my computer and saw the number 28. "Wow! Am I going 28 mph?!" One second after being at a complete stop? "Oh, maybe my top speed so far is 28 mph..." No. That was my cadence. I had, after all, just gotten moving again.  Shake your head and move on.

Oh, here's a thing not to do:

I was riding up a long hill. Near the top of the hill, the road forks. If you continue straight, you go uphill more and then quickly around a blind curve. If you go left and take the fork, you go even more sharply uphill. I wanted to go left. There was a car coming up fast behind me at 55 mph. It didn't seem like stopping in front of the car was the ideal thing to do, so I pulled off and let if pass. The only problem now was that I needed to take the fork quickly so that some car coming around the blind curve didn't have the chance to T-bone me. I had one foot clipped in. I hit the the pedal with the other foot and clipped in, and then I stood up and dig in hard to get a quick burst of speed, which was when I found out that my second foot hadn't actually clipped in. It slid off the pedal with results that were...let's say unpleasant and let it go at that. It probably wouldn't have been that bad if I hadn't immediately repeated the performance with similar results.

So, back to those last four miles I mentioned. I wallowed gracelessly up the hills for two miles. Then I get a mile of only slightly up, so I decided to hurt myself some more by picking up the pace.. The last mile has a beautiful down hill - big chain ring, dig in, then comes an unpleasant uphill and the ride is over.  I'm trying to make sure that I finish these rides strong, which is not something I am known for.

This is probably the most miles I've put on the bike in any 3 day period since I got back on it, and I managed to beat my target time for this ride.

I guess it's time to raise my goals again.

Nice.

Unwisdom

I've all my wisdom teeth
Two up top, two beneath
And yet I'll recognise
My mouth says things that aren't so wise
--Brad Roberts

So today I was unwise. (This will not surprise anyone who knows me.) Anyone who has read my recent posts and committed them to memory (a proceeding which is not recommended by any certified mental health professionals, by the way) knows that I haven’t been able to ride very much in 2010. Well aware of this myself, when I finally made some time to ride, I decided I would do about twenty-five miles. Not a long distance, but better than nothing, right?

When I hit the road, it was very windy and my legs felt like useless blocks of wood. With my twenty-five miles firmly in mind, I turned onto a route that I know is about forty miles long. Why did I do this? I don’t know.

The first ten miles of this route are up and down. The second ten miles are quite flat, but the road is surrounded mostly by fields, so there’s nothing to block the wind. The third ten miles are mostly up without a lot of downs. (I always think it’s somehow unfair when you climb a hill and then, at the top, it simply levels off instead of going down again.) The last ten miles are the hilliest of the route. This means that you hit the hardest stretch of road when you’re the tiredest. (My spellchecker does not like the word tiredest by the way, but I don’t care.)

The first ten miles went by pretty well. There were places where it was a tough pull, but that’s okay. I remember hearing Keith’s voice in my ear: “Pedal up and pedal down.” Well, I certainly have to pedal up the hills, but I didn’t feel like pedaling down the hills. Keith was insistent, though. (This insistence is all the more difficult to understand since he wasn’t actually on the ride and I was simply remembering his words from previous rides together.)

The second ten miles went by pretty well. They were harder than the first ten miles. If all you’re contending with are hills, the road will eventually level out, but, if it’s the wind, you don’t get away from it.

The third ten miles, oddly enough, were the best of the bunch. I don’t know why.

It was during this stretch of the route that I played hopscotch with a Highway Patrol officer. I was riding along the shoulder of a two-lane highway, and I noticed his pass me. Several minutes later, I saw blue lights ahead of me, though on the opposite side of the road. When I arrived at that point, I discovered that he had pulled someone over who was heading in the opposite direction.

I went on past and continued on my way. A bit later, the Patrolman went past me again. Several minutes later, I saw the blue lights blossoming in front of me, and he had pulled over someone else, this time heading in the same direction as I was. This was annoying because traffic prevented me from getting around him for a few minutes, and I had to stop.

Do you know what it’s like when you’re going hard and you suddenly have to stop? Then, a few minutes later, while halfway up a hill, you have to get going again? My legs had things to say to me. They were not nice things.

In fact, my legs had suggested on my last ride that, if they had known I was going to let them in for that sort of thing with no warning, they would have stayed home. They let me know that they’d be happy to pedal around for me, just not right now. Not today at all in fact. They suggested we talk about it next week sometime.

A mile or two later I turned and hit the last ten mile stretch. The wind was right in my face, and the hills were all in front of me.

I was tired. I am not ashamed to confess it. I could feel my thighs swimming in lactic acid, my legs were shouting at me, but I was still ten miles from home, and the only way I was going to get there was to stay in the saddle and pedal.

I’m not sure whether the harder part was the pedaling or the staying in the saddle. I had been out of the saddle for too long, and my sit bones had begun to protest shortly after the ride started, and they were still complaining now.

It was at this point, with my body sore and all of me tired that I began to wonder how I could explain to someone else that I do all of this to myself because I enjoy riding a bike.

All I can say is that you have to try it for yourself.

See you on the road.

Free to Ride

I woke up at 6:40 am. I didn’t want to wake up at 6:40 am, but there it was whether I wanted it or not. So, what do you do on your day off when you wake up way early and can’t get back to sleep? You get up and go for a ride, of course. I picked out a nice forty mile route full of hills, and I was actually looking forward to it for some strange reason. Glutton for punishment, I guess..

When I hit the road, my legs did not actually feel very good. I rode through my neighborhood, which includes a couple of leisurely hills. I blamed my poor legs on the wind (and on the fact that my legs are just poor) and then, as I got out of the neighborhood I happened to look down and ask this rather pertinent question: “What the heck am I doing riding in such a high gear?” Huh. It turns out my legs were better than I thought, but my brain was apparently not so good. Perhaps it was still asleep.

Actually, I ended up feeling really good, wind or no wind (and there was definitely wind) and I was largely able to keep my pace up where I wanted it, though there did come a point about thirty miles in, when it began to occur to me that some people have the gift of pushing themselves even when they ride alone, and some don’t. It’s easier for me to push myself if someone else is going hard and I’m trying to keep up with them, but I was determined to keep the pace up today, and I did it.

I encountered various things on this ride: Yard sales. Lots of yard sales, some of them even in yards, and some of them in parking lots, making them, I suppose, parking lot sales. I even saw a sign that said, “Free Yard Sale. Everything must go.” Free yard sale? I didn’t even try to figure that one out.

I did notice that most of these yard sales featured a variety of bicycles. Where do these bicycles come from and why aren’t people riding them?

I came perilously close to encountering an eighteen wheeler that was apparently driven by a man who didn’t know the meaning of that double yellow line down the middle of the road.

I encountered a couple of loose dogs, but they were relatively polite, chasing but not barking, chasing but never coming into the street. The two dogs who chased me last time weren’t ready for me. They didn’t see me until I was past their yard, and I was moving well, so they barked but didn’t bother to chase much.

I encountered another cyclist coming toward me. It always makes me happy to see other cyclists out riding the roads, and I always wondered if it was just me. That question was answered, because the approaching rider grinned and waved at me. I warned him of the loose dogs that he was headed toward.

Aside from the aforementioned semi and one van, the vehicles passed me politely, which was greatly appreciated. I started out gently, not killing myself on the first hills, but there is one hill at about the fifteen mile mark on this route that really used to take the starch out of my legs, and the last time I rode this route, I resolved to hit that hill hard, and I did. I determined to do the same thing, and I fairly flew up it, but I ended up slowing down at the top because the road was really rough and because I trying to catch my breath and my breath was going too fast for me to catch it.

All in all, I hit the entire route hard and did really well. I was feeling it by the end, mind you, but that’s okay. That’s rather a nice feeling because it lets you know you did something. I’m hoping to squeeze in another ride tomorrow morning.

See you on the road.