Monday, Bloody Monday...

This is the first time this year that I have faced Monday morning with slightly sore legs. That is a good feeling. Not just that, either. Over the weekend, I discovered my ass is really out of shape. No, I don't mean I'm fat and riding slow, although that would be truthful. I mean my ass isn't used to doing 2+ hours at a clip on the roadbike. I haven't ridden more than 2 hours straight on the road bike since perhaps early October, and my butt just isn't used to that narrow leather torture device we call a saddle. I would call the pain from my 2:25 and 95 minute rides exquisite if I was into that kind of pain, but I'm not so let's just call it excessive and overly detailed. I was reminded there are roughly 6 kinds of butt pain from the saddle.

1) Rub marks on the sit bones. Those are two dime-sized red raw spots that nicely mark out where your sitbones are, just in case anybody was back there looking around and wondering. With some luck - some bad luck - these ripen into saddlesores. I didn't ride enough to get these.

2) Sitting-on-nails pain you get right under the sitbones. Sometimes this is coincident with #1, but often it's an early season pain when you haven't ridden enough to beat the nerve endings into submission. It does indeed feel like a nail is half driven into each sitbone, and with each pedal stroke you drive it a fraction of an inch deeper. It goes away once your nerve endings cry uncle.

3) Monkey Butt. This happens when some combination of sweat, chamois cream, klingons, and your butt cheeks rubbing together make your Grand Canyon feel like Hell's Half Acre. It is characterized by an unsettling feeling that 'somethin' ain't right back there, I tell ya..." followed by tears when the soap hits the area in the shower. It is called monkey butt because, well...

Cyclists After an Early Season Long Ride

4) Taint Scrape. This quarter-sized raw spot on the taint is usually the result of low quality shorts, bib knickers that are a little too stretchy in the crotchal region, or bad bike fit. Taint scrape is noticeable because of the pinching feel the cyclist gets after about an hour in the saddle. It is as if tiny people with long fingernails were actually in the cyclist's shorts, pinching away at either side of the cyclist's taint. Which they are. Seriously, check sometime while you're riding. It's true. Until you've checked, you can't say I'm wrong.

5) Manscaping Failure. An epidemic among swarthy cyclists of Latin heritage, this involves forgetting to do the manscaping (or womanscaping? I can only hazard a guess) after which the bike administers a Brazillian Bikini Wax, one hair at a time, until the offending Crotchal Dreadlocks have all been plucked. The sensation is akin to being singled out in 9th grade to do an algebra equation on the blackboard in front of the class, except not as painful.

6) Scrotal Speed Bag Abrasion. Have you ever seen a boxer whacking a speed bag? That is what riding does to your Balzac when you ride. If you haven't ridden in a while, however, you have probably lost the leathery covering that normally protects your walnuts, reverting back to an almost human-like skin wrapper. The first few times you ride... well, you wouldn't buy an expensive leather sofa, then not clean and moisturize the leather, right? On the upside, you won't notice the searing pain until you remove your shorts and the Boys can roam free and explore the limits of their domain. On the downside, you will probably have to hop up and down with pain when they do hit the limits, so make sure when you take off your shorts that you're in a wide open space where you aren't going to hit and break delicate household objects, like the lawn in front of your house.

TOT 14: FBS Shop Ride

Saturday's ride was fun but it highlighted how out-of-shape I am. The threshold power was there in short 5 minute bursts, at a typical early season threshold level. The VO2 power was only there for 30 seconds at a time, and I had little ability to bounce back fast after those hard efforts. Managed a .87 IF for the ride, despite basically chugging in the last third in low L2 (except on the hills). Not thrilled, but still, I feel way ahead of where I've been at this point during past years. Thank you, TMR and Patapsco!

TOT 15: A Lonely Road

Rode solo on Sunday for 95 or 100 minutes. Stayed mostly in L2, came out of it with a .72 IF, which is what I was looking for. I had a lot of time to think about how much better I feel this year than last, and how nice it is to have a functioning back. I'm not looking to be in any kind of shape until late May, so this is the time to ease back into it.

I wonder how everybody else's early season training is going?