just limping along

The weekend of riding plans morphed a bit. I had hoped to get nearly 300 miles over the three day weekend but a last minute work schedule change meant I'd miss out on a 200k ride to the coast with my RAO partner Lauren and crew chief Dave on Monday. Yesterday I spent most of the day doing non biking things but did get out for a good hard ride late in the day.

That left today to log some miles.

I dallied a bit this morning waiting to see if a ride partner would materialize. My RAO partner had plans from late afternoon on but was hoping to find 60-100 miles early in the day. At 9:30AM I finally got on the bike and started southward, unsure exactly where the road would take me today, but thought I'd ride for about 150 miles. I rode to Keizer at a fairly quick pace but began getting a headache about 2/3 of the way there. I thought that maybe lunch and break would help. The late night last night was showing it's effect and I kept nodding off while eating. I finally hopped back on the bike but the headache was still there and was now joined by a sore lower back and stomach ache. I rode past a park that looked inviting ..... I rolled up to a picnic table, leaned the bike against the table, and laid down on the bench to rest a bit. I fell asleep! 2.5 hours later I woke up!
As I went to sit up I noted that the back still hurt..... a lot!

I knew there wasn't much to do but ride, and I did at about 12-14 mph. Instead of riding south like I had thought I might do I turned back northward. When I got to Willamette Mission Park I went in for a look see. There was a lot of activity there today. A civil war reenactment was going on along with all it's trappings. I took the bike path over to the Wheatland Ferry where there was what appeared to be a mass baptism going on in the river just downstream. In a moment of insanity I decided to cross the ferry and ride the western loop of the recent Cycle Challenge. I had saved the route on my GPS since Dave had ridden the event and said it was a route worth doing again. I had ridden many of the roads but not all and that's a good enough reason to go take a look see....albeit a slow look see. ;-)

After a couple of hours I felt a bit better. The stomach issues left but still had a slight headache, and still had a very sore back, but at least I was pedaling along at 16-18 now.

It's funny how just a little reduction in speed sure makes things a lot easier. I was looking at heart rates below 100 as I pedaled and at times below 70!

So the weekend for me ends with less than 200 miles for the first time in many weeks. I'm hoping I can get out mid week for a few rides to make up the difference.


............BIKE............LIFECYCLE.....ROLLERS....TOTAL
Today......117................0...............0..........117
Jan........618...............0................0..........618
Feb........692...............0................0..........692
March......940...............0................5..........940
April......934...............0................0..........934
May........905...............0................0..........905
June......1152...............0................0.........1152
July.......172...............0................0..........172
_________________________________________
TOTAL.....5428...............0..............5.........5433