Thursday, November 15 – The First Ride

My travels yesterday could not have gone smoother, aside from the hour-long wait for my bag at customs in Denver. Annie saw me to the bus, which went without a hitch. The drive from Heathrow to terminal 4 was actually really cool. Planes were taking off and landing all around us, and we drove right by a parked British Airways Concorde. Terminal 4 was hustling and bustling. I was lucky enough to receive one of the new “body scans.” Hopefully the dude enjoyed seeing my junk. Our plane was a bit late taking off, but still landed on time. Overall, I didn’t feel too bad after the flight. I was able to sleep for about 4 hours and had an empty seat next to me again. Unfortunately, Hashi wasn’t there. He had been replaced by a scowling British man. Arriving home was almost surreal, though I imagine it would have been even more so had it been light out. The trees are completely bare now.

A few final notes about the trip:
- I did not wear my rain coat once. It never rained hard enough or long enough to justify anything other than a soft shell. I lucked out big time.
- I had not a single major travel screw up. I lucked out big time.
- All of the girls were great. They made the trip amazing.
- I have to go back to Ireland to backpack the hiking trails there.

Last night was not ideal. Even though I stayed up until 9:30 and took a sleeping pill, I still woke up at 3:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep. It is amazing how much you can get done when you start your day at 3:30. I unpacked. I cleaned up my shop. I wrote emails. It was actually quite nice. Once it was a more reasonable hour I drove down to C-Springs to pick up my new wheels for my cross bike to replace the one that got run over at my last race. The wheels are pure sex, and I’ve never seen so much carbon as at Colorado Cyclist. The employees were very nice, and the dude even hooked me up with some bulk dura ace cables and housing instead of the stupid kits. Schaweet.

I met Gary and Mom for lunch and headed home for the dreaded first ride. Overall, my legs didn’t feel too bad on this trip. I didn’t notice a huge loss of muscle mass and didn’t feel gross all the time, in spite of the huge amounts of food I was consuming. Taking the road bike for a quick spin felt as natural as ever. My lungs didn’t burn, and my legs didn’t kill me. My heartrate was only a bit higher than normal. I still felt like I could put out a good amount of power, but not that extra little crank-bending juice I had before leaving. I felt like I lost way more fitness during my one sick week in Portland earlier this fall than I did during this entire three weeks. I’m sure that running a bit helped, though my ankle is bothering me and popping a bit. I should also mention that it was, of course, blue skies and warm enough for just shorts and a jersey. Gotta love Colorado!!!

Hopefully I can sleep tonight to get on a more regular schedule. I’m hoping to ride Buff Creek with Kate on Saturday followed by a possible all-female AC/DC cover band. What could be better?