I Gotta Keep Breathing (And Riding)

So I rode with one of my favorite biking buddies today, Jeff - he's one of the first people I started to ride with on a regular basis many years ago - and is a constant source of support, always ready to go for a ride.

We used to ride all the time a few years ago - and today was a reminder of just how much fun it is to go for a ride with someone you connect with - we always tell fun stories, catch up on the latest gossip at our respective companies, chit-chat about life, etc.

Today's ride was not exactly one of our epic ones - just a short, simple ride - I did all of 7 miles today - and didn't feel quite as bad as I did on my first ride a couple of days ago - we rode for just over 1/2 hour (actual moving time, since I've setup my Garmin Edge 500 to auto-stop when my bike stops - cool feature!) - and I even "attacked" a few small hills. Well, perhaps "attack" is stretching the truth - a bit - but you get the idea - it felt like I was attacking those small hills. I'm sure an impartial observer would be asking why the old guy on the bike was moving so damn slow up that little itty-bitty bump in the road. But I was imagining it was more like climbing up Mt. Diablo or some other monster-sized mountain. Some day next year, I won't have to imagine anything - it'll be all too real!

When I talked to Jeff last night, he asked the usual - "Are you riding - or hiding?" - and for the last couple of years, it's been "I'm hiding!" - but this morning, he showed up promptly at 9:00 a.m. - and there I was, ready to ride! So we rode - and now I'm feeling better that I've done 2 rides in the last 3 days - exactly as planned.

Now I just gotta keep moving - or, to paraphrase the end of a great speech that Tom Hanks gave at the end of Castaway (one of my favorite movies):

"And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing (and riding). Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide (or bike ride) could bring?"

:)

Did I Just Do A Century Ride Today?

Nope. It just FELT like a century ride, unfortunately - my first ride in a long, long time. Too long, as it turns out. I thought that getting onto the Comeback Trail would be tough - but it's going to be even tougher, as I found out today.

The ACTUAL ride was only about 30 minutes long - and wasn't even 10 miles long (more like 6.5 miles) - and it wasn't even hilly - it was FLAT! And I still died... :(

I guess something happens once you get past 55 (the last time I did a real ride, I wasn't even a Senior Citizen) - I'm 56 now - so THIS is what's it's like to be an old-timer, I guess. Ugh! I have a feeling it's going to be a tad harder to pull off those extra pounds, too.

But here's the good news - my new Garmin Edge 500 worked really, really well - I love it - and will be posting all my rides up on the GarminConnect website, with my handle (polarlight) - so everyone can watch me go from "Mr. Slow" to "Mr. Go"... :)

But it's gonna take awhile - I figure about 6 months before I can point with any pride to any rides I do - but it looks like I'll get some help along the way - I've already heard from a bunch of my riding buddies - Chimene, Andy, Jeff, and Jason - and I'm sure they'll help drag my butt around, firmly attached to the saddle of my bike - and hopefully get strong enough to cause them some anxiety when we hit some hill (like I did at one time - a very long time ago!)...

So today's initial ride was nothing to write home about - but at least it's a start - and that's all it was meant to be. It would have been closer to an hour, but I got started late (work crap!) and then spent a bunch of time getting my new Garmin Edge 500 configured just right - I mean, they now give you 3 (count 'em!) different displays to toggle through - and you can even have the toggling through the different screens done automatically while you ride! - and each screen can have up to 8 programmable fields - and you can choose from about a zillion (well, maybe closer to 42) different fields - nice! It'll be fun to get home tonight and upload the data to my PC - or maybe I'll just upload to the GarminConnect website, since it has all my older rides (used to be called MotionBased.com) - I'll decide later...

So it wasn't a century ride - but in about 6 months, I plan on doing a *real* century ride - and hopefully, get in good enough shape to tackle the Santa Cruz Mtn Challenge next summer - but that's just dreaming right now...first you crawl, then you walk, then you run, then you get on your bike (and die) - and then repeat as needed... :)