Today, I went for my first ride since the Terrible Two. It was a planned rest of 10 days based on the advice of my coach. This may be when he is at his best.
I got a late start, so I decided to just head out towards Oakmont and ride. No hill repeats! No endurance workouts! No speed drills! Nada! Today I was simply riding for the joy of riding. So home from work, on with the kit and on to the road. I purposely wore the exact same kit, down to the socks, I wore for the TT.
I chose to take the long way through Spring Lake Park. I usually don’t do this because you have to dodge too many strollers and joggers. But remember, today I just want to enjoy the ride. So I basically start playing. And when I turned a corner onto a small little grunt with a mountain biker near the top I knew what I had to do. This hill is really an earthen dam around the lake. It’s maybe 75 yards long but it does have a decent gradient. So Mr. Mountain Biker is two thirds of the way up when I bolt. Big gear, big pedal strokes and I just nip over the top ahead of him. Now I don’t want you mountain bikers out there to get all offended. It wasn’t the bike. It was anything on wheels ahead of me. It could have been mother on a cruiser with a child seat or a young girl with pigtails on her first tricylce. I still would have attacked because I was playing.
BTW. In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m not what you would call a mountain bike rider. It’s more like mountain bike crasher for me. And you know what they say. Mock what you cannot do. (At least that’s what my coach says. Of course, he also likes to say if you can’t be fast, look fast.)
I spent the rest of the ride doing some sprints, goofing off and mostly just enjoying the act of pedaling.
So I am back. And with 3 days of riding this weekend, I am looking forward to riding with friends now that I have the TT behind me. Now I just to brush up on my trash talking.
Ciao!
