If it's not one thing, it's another!

So, it was nice out today (about 64 degrees and partly sunny with a little wind) so I decided to go out for a nice easy training ride, despite the fact that I've really felt pretty shitty most of the week. The first problem I encountered was the fact that I didn't really decide to go out until I got home from work and realized that the weather was still being cooperative. That means I haven't really eaten anything since about noon or so when I had lunch (and I decided to jump on the bike at around 4 PM) so I was terribly under-fueled the entire ride. This means I spent a lot of the ride on the verge of cramping up and just feeling pretty crappy in general.

The second problem I ran into came when I tried to pump a little extra air in my front tire since it's been low after not riding for a week. The net result? See below...



For some reason, I don't see that as being normal in any way, shape or form. To add insult to injury, I've got ONE tube that will fit, and it happens to be the spare in my saddle bag. Of course I have plenty of mountain bike tubes and cross tubes. Argh.

In any case, even though I felt pretty crappy on the bike, I still managed 21 miles, upped my MPH by 1.9MPH for this ride and dropped my average HR by 2 BPM. The only problems I had were, surprisingly, climbing. My knees just aren't happy with the height of my saddle, which means it may be time to re-evaluate my entire position on the bike and change a few things.

Sounds like a good project for the weekend.

And speaking of the weekend, it looks like Saturday will be a nice hillclimbing ride to train for our 50 mile Ride The Ridge on 6/1, and Sunday may be a mellow mountain bike ride. It would be nice to get back on my King, really. I mean, I only built it this winter and have....maybe 2 rides on it so far? Ahhh....did I ever say I'm disgusted with the puny mileage I've put in so far this year?

YTD total mileage: 207.64 miles. I've got to work on that.