Eat a Peach...

I think that graphic neatly sums up the last 16 days or so. Got a plan, made myself accountable by posting it here in front of you guys, and knocked it out, by the numbers. Okay, I shifted a workout or rest day around, but every frickin' pedal stroke that was on the chart, I mashed.

It was a good ride today. Since the Wife and Son of Rouleur got back from Old Blighty last night, I wasn't sure if a ride was in the cards, as I missed my window (6:30 AM) due to the wicked thunderstorms that blew through here. WOR was supremely accommodating and gave me the green light to go ahead at 11:30, so I went. The first 90 minutes was sweet. Although I couldn't push sustained high wattage for any length of time, L2/L3 was easy and I was on top of the pedals. At the two hour mark, however, my feet started hurting, I lost higher power entirely, felt crummy, and at best could only sustain L2/L3 with the greatest of concentration. For power geeks, this happened at the precise moment, more or less, that my fatigue curve (TSB) shot past -35. I have discovered that past that point I have nothing. The cupboard is as bare as the interior of Paris Hilton's skull. So it was soft-pedaling it in from there, L1/L2 mostly, except on a couple hills where threshold was necessary to maintain any forward progress at all.

What was nicer than knocking out the biggest single block of training I've ever done on the bike, was stopping at a farm stand on Route 258, down near Deale. No matter how I tried, the nice lady running the stand wouldn't let me pay for a peach, and gave me a big, fat, ripe juicy one. As I pedaled toward Deale, I enjoyed the hell out of that peach, perhaps more than any peach I've ever eaten. It was delicious, and I was so hungry. I think from now on, when I'm in the middle of a ride and hungry, I won't hesitate to stop at those farm stands I always pass. It's great to do well in races, and I was thinking hard about doing well in races as I strove to keep my power level steady during the ride, but I ride for the pleasure of it. Few things are more pleasurable than eating a sweet, juicy peach on a hot day when you are real hungry. Vestigial joy from the peach inspired me to eat a banana instead of my usual muffin or breakfast bar when I stopped at a 7/11 to refill my bottles, another inspired choice as the banana had the perfect level of sweetness, making it very easy to get down in the sauna-like conditions. I did eat a Clif bar along the way, but a Clif bar is just a tinsel bag full of MEH compared to a nice fresh peach. The point of all this being take your time to stop and smell the roses.

So it's goodbye-to all that for now. I have 4 or 5 rest days, or rest-y days calendared, then it's time to start some intervals, cross technique practice and hot laps. Yay! It was hard to commit to riding around 16-18 hours per week, and the quarter-sized raw spot on my taint confirms that two consecutive 300 mile weeks, when you aren't used to it, can be tough. Still, I'm damn glad I did it, and from now on I'm going to keep this tool - and its counterpart, Carmichael's one week endurance block - in my toolkit.

So it seems appropriate, in light of today's ride, to start the Friday post with some Allman Brothers.



Duane and Greg Allman and Dickie Betts, the mainstays of this band, basically invented Southern Rock. You listen to that song, you hear folk, blues, and jazz notes. There's a lot to it. And, oh yeah, the boys from Macon have a defiant Southern rebel F.U., I'll Do What I Want To in their tone.

Of course carping the diem is part of the theme of the narrative of this post, and you can't carp the diem without some Cake. "As soon as you're born, you start dyin', so you might as well have a good time" sums it up better than I could. So have some Cake.



Of course we were talking about the Allman Brothers. My favorite song they played was Rambling Man.



Hank Senior had a song called Rambling Man too. Check this out - classic country, folk and blues in one mix.



You know who the Allman Brothers put me in mind of? Little Feat, another good jam band that isn't easily characterized.



You know who owes the Allman Brothers a debt for trampling the blues/rock jam band trail flat enough to walk on? These guys.



Other than Greg Allman - who ran his motorcycle into the back of a peach truck - the members of the Allman Brothers Band have had pretty good careers on other projects. The most notable among them is Gov't Mule. Here they are rocking a Blind Willie classic, John the Revelator.



Here's the original, for Mr. Smith.



Yeah, that's what I thought. Sure sounds *a lot* like Tom Waits. *Everybody* good has done a version of that song, including Son House, Beck, and The White Stripes. But maybe the most badass version of it is by Curtis Stigers. It's the theme song (or was) for Sons of Anarchy.



So the Allman Brothers are a great band. They're firmly in a folk/rock/blues tradition that goes back a very long way, and they've obviously been influential on a lot of bands that followed.

Then there's this - maybe their greatest song musically. I didn't like it the first 500 or so times I heard it, but it started to grow on me around 20 years ago. Since then... well, I find it sort of fascinating. Maybe it's the psychedelia-meets-classic-blues vibe. I couldn't tell you why, but in addition to liking it I know deep down it's a great, great piece of music. Not just good music, but great, as in significant. Give it a listen.