I'm A Zit, Watch Me Pop

Today's forecast was for showers and heavy thunderstorms and it was spot on. The early afternoon had heavy rains and I was thankful I didn't bring my road bike. I was mentally prepared for a session in the Stankment®. Had iPodious fired up and ready to go with the new Interpol.

Then about 4 p.m. the rain stops, the sun comes out and the radar shows NO showers. Hmmmm. Well I can NOT ride in the Stankment with the sun out, so I high tail it home, grab my gear and bike and head out to do a slightly shorter version of my normal road ride due to a later start.

About 20 miles into my ride I realized the loop I was now committed to was a shorter version of my WEEKEND ride NOT my weeknight ride. DOH! A. This would have me later than usual and B. My legs now realized they had a good hour's worth of hills left to do. Shheeeeeit.

The night was spanky though. The oppressive heat was gone, the sun was out and I was damn glad to be out on my bike and not on the trainer. Then at about mile 30 I popped like like spandex clad white head zit. I felt like I got vvvvvvvvvverrrrrrrry ssssssssloooooooooowwwww verrrryyyyyyyy fasssssssst.

I still had the biggest climb of the ride to go. I tried to conserve some energy on the smaller climbs and then got out of the saddle for that last bitch of a climb of about a mile. I was shocked I made it up the climb without stopping and weeping like a little girl.

Ride was just over 2 hours and about 34.5 miles. Most of the "popping" was mental due to my error in loop choices and being out of my normal routine of heading straight to the ride post work. Glad I got out though. Spinning in the basement with the sun shining would have sucked hard.

1 bad thing about the ride was seeing a sign informing folks that one of my fave back roads is due to "oiled and chipped" next week. SHIT! I love that THAT is how a road is resurface around here. Dump a bunch of oil on the road and then dump rock chips. Gonna be SLOW going on that stretch for a good while.

No ride tomorrow. Quality time with Wifey scheduled.

Later.