So you know its not good when you have about 1 week's worth of material to cover the entire month of January... but in the interest of not creating 4 ridiculous short separate posts, here's a summary. Assume all of the days in between were spent being a fat, depressed, blob of lameness...
... by which I mean that it's really hard to get up at 5 am and feel enough motivation to go ride in the pitch dark and 40 degree weather, knowing that the sun won't come up for another 2 hours. But I did do it once (ironically the very day that I was told I could no longer cycle), and it actually wasn't bad at all... which means that I'm still actually pretty lame for not having done it the other 17 days. Go figure.
Sunday 01/04: 18.6 miles, 1:13:40, A few easy RB laps with Peter before taking him to airport. Didn't get up early enough for a real ride, but it was nice... Felt pre-emptively unhappy about the end of vacation though... Went on my good bye run today as well, Huntington/Marengo in a slow 1:07:35, it was just supposed to be a few miles to make sure the right things hurt for the Dr's appt tomorrow, but it felt good to be out there... and I knew this was the last one for a really long time. So, I went... and it was a nice, peaceful run. The funny thing is, my foot is ironically feeling relatively calm these days.
Saturday 01/10: 2 hours, skate skiing with Peter in Colorado. My first day on skate skis--man was this hard. It took me a really long time to learn the basic motion of it, and I think I never quite learned how to not fall down frequently. It was also really tough with the 9,000 ft altitude, so I had to stop to huff and puff every 30 seconds. Once I got the hang of it towards the end, it was pretty fun!
Sunday 01/11: 2.5 hours, skate skiing at some different place in Colorado. It was pretty stormy and scary on the mountain roads today, but the skiing was actually really awesome. I felt 100% more proficient than yesterday, and probably covered 3 times as much distance than yesterday. Learned how to manage an uphill, and also to go without the poles for a little bit. The only part that I really hate is downhill. Most of my crashes were going downhill, which I suppose is some improvement over yesterday, where most of my crashes were on completely flat ground.
Saturday 01/17: 46.9 miles, 3:31:07, Couple of miles past Red Box on the 2 and back the same way. Life as a weekend warrior continues, due to lack of ability to manage the morning rides. Felt really cooped up, so hammered this ride from the get-go. Managed a respectable and much improved over the last trip pace through Clear Creek, then slowed down to make it the rest of the way. Legs actually felt great, I backed off of the pace because my HR was going crazy, but this felt like a really manageable, awesome ride. First time past Red Box on the 2, and saw some gorgeous panoramic views of the mountains beyond... Just felt really happy to be on the bike.
Sunday 01/18: 60.8 miles, 4:37:46, GMR back on EF/39 with KB. A sweet ride with an awesome gal. This ride actually felt really really good, probably due to a fantastic pancake breakfast beforehand. Took it really easy, felt a little huffy-puffy on the climb but it wasn't bad at all. The descent was scary but it was so great to be out that way again, and the kind of tired parts were not bad at all due to the good company. Felt pretty enthused and encouraged that I'm not in completely horrible cycling shape despite the large amounts of inactivity recently.
Wednesday 01/21: Really consterning ride of indeterminate length and some duration between 2 and 2.5 hours along River Trail in Denver. Took the vintage white bike out for a spin on a rare non below freezing day in Colorado. Had aspirations to find a nice road into the mountains, but got just horribly, horribly lost along the way. Bike paths are really confusing with no signs and lots of side trails and illogical turns. A nice man pointed me in the generally correct direction but I finally gave up and turned back without finding the road after I came upon one too many cryptic intersections and an icy tunnel filled with mounds of snow and deep water. Got lost twice trying to find my way back. Felt disgruntled bc of the directions and because I have absolutely no idea how far I went.
Wednesday 01/28: 46.6 miles, 2:49:17, Peter's (Short) Long River Trail Loop. A bittersweet victory, and my last training for a really really long time. On this morning, I did wake up, put on 4 layers, and embark into the darkness of a 40 degree morning on my bike. It was really surreal to be out there in the empty dark streets, but not in a bad way. It was calm and soothing and nice, though my eardrums were hurting from the cold for the first 30 minutes. Definitely felt like I was in worse shape than the weekend that I did Red Box and GMR, but I still felt decent. Rode hard, and kept up a good clip... but faded fairly signficantly on the stretch home on California. I guess, to be fair, a stiff headwind picked up once the sun came up towards the end. I felt really happy to have done this ride, and confident and excited that I could get up tomorrow and do it again... little did I know, I would not get that opportunity.
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