Slower and Faster

It's amazing what 3 weeks off of a road bike can do to your conditioning I've learned. My troubles began when I saw I had a cracked rim between two spokes on my cross/road bike. I said, well I can ride the fixed gear commuter/beater around for a while till the wheel is fixed. Nope! Turns out after extensive abuse in polo one of the spokes keeps shaking loose at the nipple, despite holding tension, it pops each one of my tubes systematically from the rim side. :(

As all of the people I normally ride with were racing and winning at the track last week I decided to go and punish myself a bit. Last year I went to Blankets on the 4th of July and did 2 laps of the whole thing, including warmup and cooldown, about 28-30 miles. I was planning a similar attack for Sunday. I did not take into account 1)I've not been riding as much 2)It was fucking hot (95+ in the shade)

Needless to say after limping through the last 2 miles of the first lap, I called it quits at about mile 15. I felt like crap. I had hit a tree, taken a stupid fall on a switchback and was tired as sin. I had plenty of water, but not enough foodstuffs. The first half of the ride I battled "Barfcon 1" signals being thrown at my brain, and the 2nd half I felt I couldn't get enough water into me, despite staying up on my electrolyte tablets. So after 2.5 hours of wailing and mashing and sitting on the side of trails slowly crying to myself I limped back to my car got naked and put up my bike. I was sore the next day, I'm rarely sore from a workout on a bike these days.

So it seems the summer has taken its toll and I've gotten significantly slower, or I feel slower. I have been working too much and not spending enough time riding bikes or exercising and its a bummer, but it is what it is.

As fast as I felt in March I feel 4x as slow now. I don't know why I let it bother me, but I do. I feel like another year has gone by and I feel I'm starting to actually get older.

Good news is that I got a new fixed rear wheel, and will have my 9speed rear road wheel fixed today so hopefully I'll get in some road riding this weekend which will calm my nerves. I did my first real ride on the road in about 3 weeks last night and I felt pretty good about it. No ape-n just some riding and man I forgot how much fun riding in the city can be when you aren't trying to lug a 30lb mountain bike with too low of a gear around. :)