there's flour on my bike jersey

I spent most of last summer on a bike (or pool running, but let's ignore that for the sake of this post).  I rode mostly in the wee hours of the morning to get it done before the heat, and then I'd come home, lift, work all day, and then cook dinner while dancing around in my kitchen with Graham, all still in my sweaty, smelling-faintly-like-peppermint (ride glide of choice) bike clothes.  I'm thrilled to say those days are back.

Sorry about the blurry pic, it's tough to hold still when you've got moves like mine.  Also, please ignore the ice pack stuffed down the back of my pants and Molly chewing on Graham's leg while he tries to get her entire head in her mouth and I put my elbow in the flour container and then it went everywhere including the wall.  And I'll take a real shower soon, I promise, but I'm swimming 6 days out of 7 and that's close enough.


A bunch of cyclists on Twitter introduced me to something called "30 Days of Biking" that happens in the month of April.  And I'm totally in.  Right now, I'm only allowed to do easy rides.  I can't do anything that requires power from my right leg or causes pain at all.  That equals an average mph that I have never seen before on my bike computer.  It's pretty humbling to have to chug along that slow.  On the flats I can average about 16-18mph without a problem but as soon as the wind blows or there is the tiniest upwards change in elevation, my speed drops like a rock.  Yesterday I got passed on the W&OD by a little kid on a tricycle.  I mean, he was cranking pretty good, so I just sucked off his back wheel(s) until we got to the top of the hill and then dropped him like a sack of sandwiches going down the other side.  You can't just wait around.

So I'm riding, I'm happier than I've been in a month to be on my bike but it's taking me a lot longer to get through the mileage I want.  There's probably a lesson in there somewhere but I'll skip over that and head straight to the complaining.  Whatever happens, I'm going to have a rock-solid base by the end of the month and I'll just cross my fingers that I can afford faster wheels work hard enough once I'm healed to get my speed back.


Day 1: 16.6 miles.  I'm slow but at least I get the good parking spots!

Day 2: 25.3 miles.  All you suckers that got caught in the rain?  Should've taken a nap all afternoon like me.  Laziness pays off!  Also I am not in this picture because I accidentally snot-rocketed myself and it was not pretty.

Day 3: 20 miles.  Blasting headwind on the way out makes for a pretty sweet ride home.

This photo was not taken from a moving bicycle.  What?  It's not like I'm going faster than 15mph anyway.


I'll be taking pictures every day this month with my crappy iPhone camera so sorry about that in advance but I've got enough electronics to lug around and every ounce counts (at least that's what all the fat fast cyclists say).  I'm also doing doubles (swim + bike) almost every day so at least I'll be able to get through the first 57.2 miles of my half-IM pretty easily although it might take me as long as it takes everyone else to get through all 70.3 if I can't start using the muscles in my right leg pretty soon.    


How was your weekend?