A Dry Saturday Ride

Last Saturday I woke up and peaked outside the window checking to see how hard it was raining. To my surprise it wasn’t raining at all. Bonus! With that, I gathered up all of my cycling gear, made a PB&H, threw my bike in the back of car and headed over to the Centennial trail. Normally, I would just start from home and ride over to the trail but I haven’t done much training lately so I was looking to minimize on the cycling punishment. There’s a big hill in between my house and the trail. I’ll save that punishment for January when the real training begins.

Once I got to the trail I was glad I skipped the hill from the house. It was like I had some kryptonite in my back pocket. My legs just didn’t have much go in them. I guess I’ve been doing way too much eating and not enough riding. After a while the kryptonite must have dropped out of my pocket because my legs came back to life.

I still felt like I was pedaling squares as opposed to a smooth circles but I had enough energy to enjoy myself. Most people on the trail were all smiles because there just aren’t many days this time of year that are dry. As I got to the end of the trail I noticed 30 or so people running that had on matching shirts. As I passed them I noticed that their shirts said Army on the back. They all seemed like they were dragging and there wasn’t much spring in their step. When I turned around at the end of the trail and passed them coming back I noticed that not one of them had a smile on their face. It was a pretty grim sight. I guess that’s the difference between doing something you enjoy and completing a requirement. Being all you can be didn’t look like much for the day.

On the way back I got into the zone of deep thought as I pedaled along so I didn’t even notice some fellow cyclists as they passed me. They probably said “Onyerlef” but I just didn’t hear it. That startled me back into reality so I decided to do some tagging along. I was able to do some pretty good drafting without being right behind them for a while. All of the sudden I started hearing music and they pulled over. One of them got a phone call and the party was over. I was on my own again for the rest of the ride.

All in all, it was great to ride without the rain. I’m planning on another ride this weekend if the weather holds. The forecast is calling for snow of all things but I’m crossing my fingers.