Arrived back from France around 9pm last night, and as usual, the usual question. “You’re not really going to ride tomorrow, are you?” No different from when it’s going to be raining heavily. “You’re not really going to ride tomorrow, are you?” There must be something pleasurable about the way those syllables roll of the tongue. Because I hear the exact same thing if I’m sick. “You’re not really going to ride tomorrow, are you?” My wife’s smart enough to know the answer before she asks the question, thus leaving me with this sudden realization that those exact sounds do something to strongly stimulate some center pleasure in the brain.
But I’ve been at this long enough to know that getting back into my normal routine, as quickly as possible, resets my clock. Which, in fact, it did. At least until about 10pm tonight, when it started feeling like the 7am it would be in France and my awareness was dimming quickly just as the sun would be expected to be coming up. And for me, there’s nothing more terrifying than staying up all night and watching the sun come up. Happened in college a couple times. Nothing scarier.
But it felt great to get onto my Madone and feel how lively it handled after 6 days on a heavily-loaded-down Bike Friday. And the nearly-perfect weather, maybe 62 degrees and moderately-low humidity as I started out… it’s good to be home. The air, the water, it’s the best here. And, to be truthful, it felt good to be liberated from a breakfast of french pastries.
Eric, Todd, Karen, Karl & Marcus… as usual, it seems like I’m missing someone (Keith!!!!). I did what I could on the climb, but didn’t have any real-time indication as I was riding, since I hadn’t located my Garmin computer after packing it (found it later, buried in a shoe in a suitcase). But since the ride doesnt’ exist if I don’t have evidence from cameras or computers, I used Strava’s iPhone app to keep track of things, and apparently rode up the hill in 27:38. I can live with that. And overall it was a pretty fast pace, getting us back to the start a couple minutes earlier than normal. And I barely lived with that!
Neither Kevin rode this morning; don’t know where the pilot was, but my son was sleeping in. He missed a good ride.
