How much does it hurt?

It was a heathy activity when I started, but it's turned into an addiction.

Since late October, when the weather really started to change, I have had fewer opportunities to do the big rides. The weather hasn't been cooperative and I haven't been up to fighting 20mph winds in the biting cold. So, call me a whimp, but it just doesn't sound like fun. When it's 34 degrees and dark at 7:30am with the wind whipping through the trees, and you're looking out the window half asleep while the cold outside reaches it's fingers through the window to pull the lingering cozy warmth from your body, you seriously rethink your commitment to some silly bike ritual. Crawling back into the soft, still warm sheets and settling in for another sweet dream has a significantly greater appeal than turning your body into a mass of goosebumps while you grab a quick shower, wolf down 2-3 glasses of water with a quick light breakfast and race out the door into guaranteed suffering in the cold and wind. Don't you agree?

It holds true at least until you go into withdrawl. That's when you start to go stir crazy. When you check weather.com obsessively and try to re-arrange your life to grab the few hours of sunshine on the least miserable day to get in a quick ride. Where you'll go anywhere and do anything to get a good workout and build up a sweat. Where you're willing to take your chances with trees and rocks and other deadly obstacles to try to compensate for a good, hard, consistant road ride. When you're ready to do almost anything to get to that place you were in in October.

That place? Well, "that place" is where the muscles are hard and strong under your skin. Where they define themselves as you move and tighten them. Where they sculpt themselves into distinct shapes that never were before. When you're there, you want to go forward... not back.

It only takes a few short weeks for the muscles to get sleepy from a lack of use. They soften and loose their shape and are not willing to do what they seemed to love to do. When I started to go there, I got scared. I worked too hard to get where I am. I can't give it up now! I can't spend a lazy winter and emerge in the spring at the level I was at last spring. I want to jump out of the gates and keep up with the guys in April. I want to be ready to compete in June. I've got big plans for this year and I'm not going to get there unless I work hard between now and then.

So I put my bike on a trainer for the first time. Then I put myself through a high intensity workout for well over an hour. I sweated like it was July. I busted my butt and everything else until it hurt and then I did it some more. I went through the quitting point at least twice and pushed my brain to force my body to go on and step up the level too. It was good. I did it again two days later and again the day after that. Then my legs started to wake back up, started to firm back up. Tired but happy. This is good.

Yesterday, I grabbed the first opportunity I could to do a short but high intensity ride outside. It was great to get back out there. It was cold and it was surely going to rain, but I didn't care. It was what I needed and I was going to get in the best workout I could in the little time I had.

As I was heading home, riding through Oakland, it started to get a bit colder. Then I realized it was the rain. It was gentle enough and persistent enough that I wasn't really aware of it until I noticed the wipers going on the cars. Not to worry, I was little more than three miles from home. I was lost in thought until I picked a leaf or something in my tire. I couldn't see it but I could hear it. Must have been just a leaf, and then it was gone.

Then, another strange feeling. Almost rhythmic. Somewhat reminiscent of my ride in the Catskills where I felt I was riding on bumps that weren't there... when I had a broken spoke.

What the hell? I jumped off my bike before it was fully stopped.

Tire is a little soft. I must have picked up some glass or something. I had no spare tube, no patch kit, no tools, no pump, no one to call to pick me up and 45 minutes until I needed to get my daughter and my student from the grammar school. Damn!

I have been jumping from one bike to the other so much that everything was off the road bike. In my haste to get out today I forgot my riding glasses but I had turned back for them when I hit the first downhill and the 38 degree air hit my eyes at 30 mph, painfully blurring my vision. I didn't even think about my repair kit until I was too far back into the ride. It figures, the one day when I'm without it.

So, I turned a good ride into a quick paced and strenuous 3mile walk in bike shoes. I could certainly feel the burn. I was okay with it. I was certainly going to learn my lesson and I was going to make the walk as effective as possible. And so I did.

I was a bit sore in the evening and as I raced around the TV studio wearing my many hats and producing/directing two great shows. Each time I bent or stretched, I hurt. I'm sore and hurting today. Each time it hurts, I'm happy. We're back!!!

Now I understand the line in the song from John Cougar Mellencamp... It hurts SO good!!