Surplus Recovery

After a nice but probably unnecessary recovery day on Monday, I was ready for a good Tuesday morning training ride. There were, however, complications, one of which was Daylight Savings Time which essentially robs those of us who ride in the morning of daylight and gives it to those of you who ride in the afternoons. It's just robbing Peter to pay Paul unless someone can figure out a way to slow the rotation of the earth, which would, of course, have other untoward global consequences. But I digress.

So I woke up on time but my brain was still clearly operating on CST. I looked at the thermometer and couldn't decide what to wear. Like I said, my brain was still on CST. I went downstairs and opened the door. It was dark and it felt cold, so I decided I needed knee-warmers. I put the headlight on the handlebars and the tail light on the seat bag. In the background the clock continued to tick, tick, tick. I went back upstairs and searched through the pile of cycling clothes on the bedroom chair. No knee-warmers. Brain still dysfunctional. I went back downstairs and searched through my bag. Everything inside is black this time of year. It was dark. I pull everything out, one by one. No knee-warmers. I'm getting pissed. The clock is ticking. Back upstairs to rummage through the bedroom. Still no knee-warmers. I am NOT riding without those damned knee-warmers. It's a matter of principle now. Tick, tick, tick.... Maybe I threw them in the laundry hamper? Ahhhh, there they are. Back downstairs with warm knees. Check the watch. Shit, I'm way too late to make the 6:15 start.

So I end up a good five minutes behind the group. It's pitch dark and the headlights from the oncoming traffic down on River Road are blinding me. I decide I'll just motor along and catch them on the flipside. I'm going pretty good with a nice tailwind as the sun finally starts to filter in, and then somewhere out near the airport I see a bunch of riders standing around fixing a flat. Actually one of them is sitting down surrounded by various and sundry tire implements. This is always a bad sign. We do not sit down to fix flats. It's a rule. Ask Robin.

It turned out that the rest of the group, which was rather small anyway, had continued on while these four or five had stayed behind to supervise the flat-fixing procedure, which is taking f o r e v e r. Soon after we got rolling again we saw Woody and Tim (or maybe Erich?) coming back. They must have turned around at the "little dip." We continue on, planning on hooking back up with the main group on its way back from Ormond. Then, a little while later we saw what was left of the "main group" coming back. They had apparently turned around early at The Dip. The guys in our group start asking each other if we are going to turn around too. I was determined to get in the full ride, however, so although we lost a couple of guys at the Dip, three or four continued on out to the Turnaround.

I knew the ride back was going to involve some headwind, but it didn't take long to realize I'd seriously underestimated it. There was a stiff and steady east northeast wind blowing and home was, basically, 21 miles away to the east southeast. The paceline quickly went silent and the pulls got short, the way pacelines do when everybody is just wanting to get it over with. Suffice it to say, it was a very long ride home on Tuesday. On the plus side, it was also a decent enough aerobic workout, and my legs were feeling reasonably recovered from the weekend. If aerobic workouts were what I needed right now, which they aren't, it would have been perfect.

This morning wasn't so good. I could hear the cars on the wet street when I awoke and one glance out the window confirmed that there was a very light rain. I considered, however briefly, putting on the rain jacket and taking the rain bike out again, but I knew the bike had a flat tire -- I really need to put some Mr. Tuffy's in those tires -- and I ended up pulling the covers back over my head and getting in an extra hour of "recovery sleep." Not that I needed it. In fact, I've accumulated quite a bit of surplus recovery time lately. At some point it's just no longer "recovery." I had told myself I'd just go for a ride this evening, but then I remembered that I have to pick up The Wife from the airport at 5:30. Oh well.....