Don't worry, it was nothing serious, just a migraine, an illness and some minor surgery to remove an annoying mole, all happening in quick succession. But everything seems to be healed now, so I am climbing back up into the saddle again!
Only this time, I'm not just riding, I'm in training!
Now, before you get too excited, I'm not entering a race or planning on making some cross country trip or something like that. No, my goal is much more modest. All I want is to be able to ride "the loop" at least once before the summer is done.
OK... I realize that the above graphic tells you nothing... but doesn't the lake in the middle look vaguely like the head of a golden retriever?
Anyhow, "the loop" as CatMan and I have coined it, is just a series of connected bike paths that makes a loop... hence the very creative name.
I measured it out on Google Earth, and it says it's only 30 miles... you know, it feels much longer than that because this terrain is not exactly what you might call flat. Plus, I may have cheated near the reservoir in the bottom right hand corner... I think the actual route involves a climb to the top of the dam - oh, the joy.
Anyhow, I'm guessing that when you add it all together with the miles required to get to and from the start of "the loop" it will come out closer to 45 miles. I could probably do it today if I REALLY had to, but it would be a long, hard slog. And the truth is that it's not so much the length of the journey in miles that is the problem, it's the amount of time that it will take.
Between CatMan and I, we have a series of medical "issues" that make it pretty darned difficult to stay in the saddle for more than 3-4 hours. He has a bad back, and I've got this freaky allergic condition that makes it downright dangerous to combine food and exercise - meaning that I can't ride for at least an hour after eating (preferably two) and I can't refuel along the way.
And even though I'm very happy with my new bike seat, I fear my little tuckus would definitely start to complain if I forced it to endure a 6 hour ride!
So... all this means that in order to meet my goal, I've gotta get in better shape so I can ride faster.
We rode about 2/3 of the top section today (both ways) plus the ride to and from the trail, which ended up being 23 miles and took about 2 and 3/4 hours. I'm sure our average speed took a real hit from my abysmal performance on the hills... at one point during the steepest part of the ride I looked at my speedometer and I was cruisin' at a whopping 3 miles per hour! Oy!
But the summer is young and barring any more unforeseen "misfortunes," I'm hoping to get out there and ride 2-3 times per week. I figure if I push myself just a little bit harder on each ride, I should be able to "get loopy" by the end of the summer!
Of course, there are those who would argue that I'm already plenty "loopy" enough...
So how about you? Anybody else got any big goals for the summer?