Day 139 - Good idea

It sounded like a good idea last night. Last night, back when I was still jacked from my awesome run.

Jacked isn't the word that applies here. More like frisky. Or cocky.

Here's the deal. I have this really nice bike. It is way more bike than I need. It's way more than I deserve. It's so nice that I don't feel like I own it as much as I'm its caretaker. It doesn't live in the shed. Not even in the garage. It lives in my walk-in closet.

That means that I see it every day. And some days I feel guilty for not putting such a fine piece of machinery/art to better use.

Don't get me wrong, I like cycling. Like. I don't love cycling.

But last night, seeing that the weather was supposed to be decent, I decide I'd ride to work.

Oh, but that's not all. My son had a baseball game in the evening, so I was going to ride up to his game. And then ride home. And I also had to get a run in there somewhere. Sure I haven't ridden since last fall. So what.

Excellent plan! This was going to be a great day. I packed my gear, pumped up my tires, got everything all ready the night before like a first grader before the first day of school. I was so excited I hardly slept. (That fact is important later.)

The ride in to work was actually pretty great. Only 10.4 miles, but I was fast. I didn't get run over by a dump truck. Or a cement truck. I had fun and I didn't die.

I had another excellent run over lunch. Felt fantastic. By 12:30 I was wrapping up my second shower of the day.

Then the 2:00p meeting. The long, crowded, review. The one with demos that only show text output of who-knows-what scrolling up the screen. They could have written a script that spit out random Monty Python quotes and no one would have a clue.

My eyes were heavy. My breathing started to get slow and deep. My lack of sleep and my manic desire for physical exertion had teamed up on me. I was toast.

I survived the meeting without nodding off, and managed to crank out some good work. At 5:00p, it was time to head north for the baseball game.

For those who don't cycle much - there's no delicate way to put this - it hurts your butt. Actually, it's fine at first. It's when you get back on the bike that you notice that your tail is bruised.

So the 13.3 mile ride to the game wasn't great. Not unpleasant, but not the speedfest that the morning ride was. More traffic, more brushes with death. About 2/3 of the way there, I could feel my legs getting tired. I decided that plan B was probably a good plan. I'd call the girlfriend and see if she could come and fetch me.

She couldn't. I was going to have to ride home.

The game was fun. His team was getting slaughtered, but I got to hang with him and, well, just hang.

At 7:30p, with the score 12-1 bad guys, and not knowing how long it would take me to get home, and not wanting to ride in the dark, it was time to saddle up and head home.

The ride home was, and I'm being kind here, miserable. I was tired. My butt hurt doubly muchly. My legs were just bags of goo.

There were dark clouds ahead. I was slow and complainy. But I made it home. 12.9 miles of character building. Felt more like 50 miles of character building.

Am I glad I did it? Meh. Would I do it again? Nope. Will I forget how wasted I am and how I can barely sit down and how much I hate riding into the wind out in the country and do something this stupid again someday? Probably.

I can tell you one thing, this wasn't a day wasted.

Good running,
Doug

Numbers: 4.2 miles on roads at a nice clip. Felt terrific.