Heat wave?

You can't really tell, but the picture is a field of cuddly looking goats(clicking on the picture helps a lot). They seemed both terrified and super curious about me. Today's ride was down right awful. 92 degrees is a bit too hot for me. I cut my ride by 4 miles and still had trouble mustering up the energy to get home (don't worry..I did get home). I think it was a rough ride because of the wind, heat, tired mind, and tired body. Luckily tomorrow will be an easy ride.

I ran out of water with 10 miles to go so I did something I've never done before. I stopped at a house because the family was having a water fight in the front yard, and asked to use their hose to fill up. The mom was super nice and got me cold water form inside. I hate stopping, but I was starting to feel a bit dehydrated so it was ultimately the correct choice. I don't think I've ever tasted cold water that was so refreshing!

Goats!
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Saturday ride

This is Indiana cycling. Blue sky, Corn Fields, and long roads.

I took this at mile 20 on the way home from my ride. I accidentally participated in 5 miles of the Wabash River Ride 64 mile route. If you squint you can see one of them ahead of me. I passed a lot of them, but only because they were going more than twice as far as I was. It was nice seeing a steady stream of riders participating in the ride. I think I'll try to do it next year. I did 30 miles in total at a good clip (19.6mph).

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This is what I found when I got home today. Who knows how long Penny has been staring the other cat down.

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I guess I lied

What I thought was going to happen, did not happen. whoops. If it does happen in the future, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

a hard ride

What happens when you don't keep riding during the second half of the summer? You get SLOW!

Today's ride was a rude awakening. It was a harder ride, but it shouldn't have been as hard as it felt. Quite frankly, I was in poor form each up hill, during each sprint (although, sprinting would indicate that I actually went faster for some amount of time), and when riding in the pack. I was gassed and sucking wind for the last 10 miles. I think the worst part was feeling that some people I knew on the ride just assumed I'd be in shape and ready to go.

Last year, I don't think I would have blinked at a 20mile ride at 22-28mph. That's probably not true. Either way, I'll just have to grind it out till I get get the fitness back.

I keep meaning to take a picture before the ride of the group, but I always chicken out. I think about taking one during the ride, but the groups have been a bit unstable. sooner or later a photo op will arise.

First club ride of the semester

I went on a short club ride yesterday. I like going to the very first ride because it will be the largest ride by far for the year. There were maybe 6 new people on the ride. It was an easy paced ride so the hardest part was helping everyone get comfortable riding in a double pace line. A perfect pace line is like a well oiled machine that allows for constant speed/effort and equal work load spread out among the people on the ride. Yesterday wasn't perfect but it got the job done. There was a lot of braking then pedaling to hard to catch up then more breaking. It had an accordion feel to it, but that's the joy of the first ride.

The hardest part of the ride was the fact that I was 7 minutes late and had to work to find and catch up to the group. I think a couple of people didn't recognize me when I discretely latched on to the back of the pack and were concerned that I was so out of breath within the first 15 minutes of the ride.

No picture from the ride so here is a video of the pro executing a perfect rotating paceline. When it works like, that it gets real fun.

There will be some big news later this week in regards to my publicity as a cyclist. I can't say more right now so you will have to tune back later. (try Thursday) I'm x-cited, so you should be too.

My 20th first day of school

Well, another year has started. Oddly enough, my schedule is about the same during this semester as it was during the summer. I have a few extra obligations, but I'm not taking any formal classes this semester. No tests and no papers, just clients, prelim, research, and teaching. All in all not so bad as long as I can stay on top of the research and prelim.

Campus sure is busy though. My parking pass was ultimately clutch this morning. I was grinning like a fool all the way up to the top of the parking garage.