Back At It

I apologize for the week's absence. During a cub scout trip [trap] with Son [Sun] of Rouleur, 9 other assorted [assrotted] daddies, I contracted the Catoctin Catarrh. Very nice crew of folks, and I've got nothing but admiration for what the Scouts do for the kids, but let's be real - a primitive open bay scout cabin filled with 10 kids and 10 adults is essentially a giant festering petri dish that promises to do it's duty to God and country and to always be prepared.

Arriving back early Sunday morning, I took to bed, and slept until Tuesday, pausing from my repose only long enough to get up, stagger around the house racked with severe body aches, thence to return to bed. Tuesday morning I got up, ate some food, then got hit with the worst [wurst] case of the shiznits that I've had in several years. I spent most of the rest of the week either at work, or sleeping. No bikey-bikey for me until Saturday, and I was not a happy camper then and I am still not quite right now. The flu is mostly gone but I'm managing to make some amusing typos (in [brackets]), and I'm dead tired, plus I also got to check Facebook several times from the bathroom at work today. Life proceeds apace, unfortunately it's a 4 minute mile pace and at my best in much younger days now long, long gone I was only about a 4:45 guy.

There is some riding going down. Saturday I knocked out close to 3 hours at a modest (at best) pace at Rosaryville, much of it with the excellent Schiavo posse. To paraphrase BB King, the Flow is gone... the Flow is gone away from me.

I did manage to remount the horse today and make the commute with Fast as Schidt Sean, and I'm hoping to get in 90 minutes of mountain biking tomorrow AM. So it's not all grim news on The World's Most Haphazzard Training Plan In The World.

Today's ride was very cold indeed; it was the coldest 34 degrees I can ever recall feeling, probably some combination of the wind and humidity made it that way. This was compounded by my stupid choice to wear a great pair of Castelli shorts - let me clarify that: a great pair of Castelli hot weather shorts. My thighs and ass cheeks got so cold this morning that they went past the point of pins and needles. I also stupidly wore a pair of light duty knee warmers, that really only cover my knees and which slipped down repeatedly, thanks to their short length, and the short leg length on the excellent Castelli hot weather shorts. I only thawed out after taking a super hot shower at work. I did feel like the Pasha after that, sitting at my desk and tossing down espresso shots, but I noticed on one of my many visits to the rest room - a room of no rest at all for me today - that my face was all chapped from the ride. The ride home tonight was alright, with a lot of wind, only sometimes from helpful directions. It was also 10-15 degrees colder than the forecasted 50 degree high, so that was a little disappointed, and can I tell you, 37 degrees is one of the hardest temperatures to dress appropriately for. The body also reacts weirdly; one's junk neither ascends into the upper protect-us-from-all-cold position (where it is safe from the depredations of the saddle's nose), nor does it drop down into the oh-just-sling-us-around-anywhere posture where it is fine no matter how badly the saddle beats on the Boys. So basically it was like a stiff boxer's speed bag for the entire trip home, getting punched around a lot but not exactly oscillating with the required flexibility. It was rather uncomfortable, like everything else about the riding today.

Upon arrival at home, I again took a hot shower, put on the flannel pajama bottoms and an old triple weight sweatshirt that belonged to my father. I sat there after dinner tonight, snugged up in my reading chair in that sweatshirt, reading Don Simmons' Fall of Hyperion and feeling like I was 7 or 8 years old and curled up in my dad's embrace on a sick day. I haven't figured out whether the ghosts of people reside in particular old sentimental things, or if our memories burnish the old things with our gold-tinged sentiments. It doesn't matter in the end; what matters is that sometimes the things of loved, departed ones can give us great comfort. That old sweatshirt is like the echo of a hug from my old man. I miss him still, miss his wisdom and his dry sense of humor and his patience. I'd thank him for the sweatshirt if I saw him tonight and give him a hug like one of the long hugs Son of Rouleur likes to give me. For now I'll have to settle for being right here in this impossibly thick, warm hoodie, and with the warm feeling his memories give my heart.

The short term planning is in place to get ready for Leesburg, the Baker's Dozen. I'm patently not in shape for it - fat, not enough miles in my legs, blah blah blah. The plan is to ride my ass off for the next two weeks, take the Thursday before the race off, ride easy on the Friday, perhaps knocking out a tour lap at Leesburg; then ride my balls off, or at least ride them into a stretched and attenuated position on race day.

This plan guarantees nothing but pain, but it's all I got. It'll be a good kind of pain... if I can find my flow before then.

TOT 23: Field of Dreams
Rosaryville State Park Perimeter Trail

TOT 24: View Down M St., NE,
From Met Branch Trail Bridge