1 bike ride, 35 miles, a headwind in EVERY direction, and 176.99 dollars later

Warning...this is a dysfunctional post...total ramble. Read at one's own risk.

i might actually have my legs back. maybe? possibly? almost. Blew off an offer to ride 50 miles yesterday cuz it looked yucky out...ok that was what i said but i'll be honest here...i didn't feel great. Tired. Tired...oh...and tired. not the crazy malaise I had two weeks ago where I would fall asleep at the drop of a hat, but just...meeh. I'm having a hard time accepting that 4 very stressful weeks in the office full of travel, a week of heavy duty experiments, people actively stressing me out at work, a checkpoint, a condo i'm trying to buy and that thing called 'life' that doesn't seem to stop either. It's those 'other' things that seems to be draining me and impacting me more than I would like to admit are starting to take its toll on me. I don't think racing a half marathon a week ago really helped either... So...this week i've just sucked it up and accepted that I need to be 'nicer' to my body. (mostly) I spent half of a yoga class on Wednesday in child's pose because my body just didn't want to do much back bending and it seemed every pose had a back bend involved. seriously? ugh.

So I rescheduled with Kimmy....and we headed out this afternoon after I got out of church. It was supposed to be a chilled out 30ish ride...you know...2ish hours...enjoy the beautiful day sort of deal. And it started out as much granted there was a killer headwind as we went north...but we chatted about how GREAT the tailwind would be on the way back. But then I noticed the holder that holds my super ghetto bike computer decided to swing itself around my aerobars. Ohhh the dangle...looked like a disaster waiting to happen. So halfway through we stopped to fix it at a LBS. 5 minutes later, easy peasy fix...all ready to gooooooooooooo...hmmm...im hungry...shot blocks? 1.99...k....let's rock and roll.

But kimmy is admiring the beautiful bikes. ohhhh and the bike lust set in with all the beautiful bikes. And then bikeshopguy who is a friend of kimmy's starts talking fitting, bikes, gearing, bikes, and more bikes. oh...thinking of buying a tri-bike??....and then successfully SUCKED into the bike store vortex. Current debate I am now chewing on...IF i were to buy a tri bike here soon...what gearing?? Standard crank set vs. Compact when i'm used to a triple at 30/42/52 with a 12-25?...and did you know...they now sell 11-28s? In fact I learned all kinds of crazy rear cog set-ups are available. keep in mind it is only in the past year I even barely started to understand what the gearing was all about and for the record...i never use to CARE.ugh...i think the gearing debate is a post in itself.

so...bikeshopguy asks kimmy about the health of her chain...she brings in her bike and...ut-oh...chain is waaaaaaaaaaay stretched and has impacted her rear cog set in the process. So one new chain, a rear cogset, 175.00 dollars later...we are now ready to head out...ugh 176.99 just dropped on what was supposed to be an easy peasy fix for me.

The rest of the ride seemed somehow to be a constant headwind no matter what direction we went. North...east...south...west. ugh. But I did hammer it a bit down one of my favorite stretches (aside from the crappy pavement part...it's just no stoplight zone for about 4-5 miles)...and the legs are almost back to where I'd like so i'm pleased.

And while a wickedly long 35 mile bike ride due to our little side excursion...still an awesome fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon...on two wheels and with a good friend.