So, last week I agreed to help a guy with a thing. We had to work from 6~7 pm to 9~10 am all week, replacing a drop ceiling (fire rated sheet rock tiles, of course).
I've spent the last 28 years working in cleanrooms, mostly looking through microscopes, crunching data and writing reports, so the labor involved in the ceiling job really took it's toll on me.
I was pretty sure I'd bail on riding, but I made 2 important discoveries.
First, I realized that if I have no time margin, I will roll out of bed and climb on the bike to get my ride in. When I have extra time, I will procrastinate up to the last second (as evidenced by the number of rides I've started close to 11:00 pm.)
The other surprise, is that when my joints and muscles are so stiff and painful that I can hardly move, an hour on the bike totally loosens me up and I actually felt pretty good by the time I got to the job site.
Job got done and I didn't miss a day riding; win/win.
Sunday, I had to ride from Port Monmouth to Oakhurst to pick up my truck. I figured I'd head down past Brielle and circle back to my truck for 40+ miles, and covering all that flat land on a plastic bike, I might actually log an avg speed approaching the numbers real cyclists hit on a slow day.
http://app.strava.com/activities/354768379
Reality hit me in the face though, when I crested the Azzolina bridge and saw kite boarders on the Ocean side, and all the white caps washing north.
When I rolled off of the bridge and onto Ocean Ave, the wind in my face was brutal and unrelenting. Every flag for the next 9 miles or so was pointing straight at me like cardboard cutouts.
At Monmouth Beach, the wind kicked up another notch (it went to 11), and I seriously considered stopping and getting a ride (we have several households of friends and family along this strip), but I knew the price of a ride would be years of mockery.
If I lived in Oakhurst and rode to PoMo, I probably would have had the ride of my life, as the 1000 riders going northbound on Ocean Ave were flying along without pedaling, some on bikes with square wheels.
So I pushed on to Deal, where I was happy to turn out of the wind and go straight to my truck; did not pass Go, did not log extra miles.
My battle with discouragement started when I looked at the Strava file.
20 miles - almost all of it flat - on a carbon road bike, and I averaged only 12 mph.
I'm pretty fat, so I've always been slow, but this ride made me want to go back to undocumented riding. I would've carried the streak at least through the end of the month, but not as a participant in the challenge.
Late Sunday night though, I started to get pissed at myself for relying on Strava to validate the worthiness of my ride. The truth is, I genuinely loved it. I kind of loved fighting the wind and I definetly loved the route.
And I loved seeing all the smart, independent, capable women in their beach attire along the way. Women whose body type, physical endowments, and facial symmetry I didn't even notice, much less ogle, and I certainly didn't inquire as to how they may have been doing that afternoon.
So I'm still in, and looking forward to seeing how far into August I can extend the streak.
Speaking of which, I've still got to get my ass out there today.