Day: December 6, 2008

I first realized how destroyed my legs were from yesterday when I stopped to take a pee before we got out of town.  There was a medium sized group of 70-80 this morning, and I pulled off to the side of the road to relieve myself before we got to the last stop light, which marks the start of the race.  I got stuck at a light, and had to push 350-400 watts for a couple minutes while I chased the pack down.  I got there just in time too, right as they got to the last light.  But those two minutes sucked.  My legs had no juice in them.  Like a big lemon that has just been squeezed and nothing else will come out and you think, “Really?  That’s all the juice that’s in there?  A lemon that big only has 3 tablespoons of juice?  I’m never shopping at Safeway again.  What a rip off.”  But then later in the week you end up going back to Safeway because it’s just too convenient, even though the produce is garbage and their lemons have very little juice, just like my legs today.

I took a couple pulls in the beginning of the ride, then dropped back in the middle to suck wheels after I realized I was going to be worthless today.  A break of 2 guys got away, and stayed away.  Near the top of the hill after the bridge, I began pulling again, and somehow still managed 4th up the final hill 20 minutes later.  Maybe the rest of the guys just let me go because they were tired of riding behind someone who’s worn out bibs left too little to the imagination.  Or maybe my little spurt of energy was coaxed out by the memory of a comment I received early from one of the guys.  

Him: “That there looks like a traveling bike.”  
Me: “Huh?  Me?”  
Him: “Yeah, a touring bike. Seen some miles hasn’t it?”
Me: “You will suffer dire consequences for those words. I swear I will avenge my bike’s honor. It may be today, tomorrow, ten years from now while you’re asleep in bed. But mark my words, I will have my vengeance and you and all those you love will pay for what you have said today.”

6th place. I showed him.

What a great ride today. It started out with some frustration with my power tap CPU. I never know what buttons do what and sometimes I get it on a weird setting, like showing torque instead of power, or I zero it while I’m pedaling which seriously screws with what watts it thinks I’m doing. If you have a power tap you know what I’m talking about. Maybe. Anyways, I swore at it for a couple miles and finally got it set correctly.

The bike gods gave me some terrific weather, sunny and low 70’s all day. They also blessed me with no flats, no crazy drivers ( first time in weeks), and legs that couldn’t be stopped even if they were towing a fully loaded cement truck.

I rode out to Kitt Peak, climbed up to to the top, screamed down in minutes, and hammered back home, averaging 260 watts for 6 hours over 120 miles. I had plenty of energy at the end to hammer all the way through town, where I raced a school bus filled with middle schoolers. They were sticking their heads out the windows screaming at me to keep up, banging their hands on the side of the bus in excitement. The bus driver was probably freaking out like they always did when I used to ride the bus. I stayed with them or caught them at stop lights for a good few minutes, then sprinted by them right as they turned onto another road.

A ride like that calls for immediate consumption of a giant bowl of oats. Behold, Oatsatron 5000:

Huge quantity of oats, three spoons of brown sugar, raisins, cinnamon.

I  had an interesting experience just now. Someone knocked on our door, I got up to answer it. It was a guy coming to pick up a wildlife survey that he had dropped off for Aaron to fill out earlier today. I went over to the coffee table to get it and Chops, Tony’s dog, ran to the door and attacked the guy, barking and biting at him. The guy tried to defend himself as Chops tried to kill him. I ran out and tackled/tripped on top of Chops, who yelped and ran back inside, where I caught him, grabbed him by his throat with one hand and lifted him up about five feet off the ground, then slammed him on his back on the cement floor. I hope I broke something. I hate that damn dog.

Luckily I don’t think the guy got bitten too hard, but he took off pretty quickly after I apologized. Chops is going to cause a law suit one of these days.