Done...Well Done...Overdone

I'm writing this more than an hour after returning from the ride and just about everything hurts and/or aches: back, calves, left knee, right wrist, etc. etc. etc., and the manly yawns have set in, the kind that involve the whole body. Even the hair on the back of my neck has to stop and stretch in the middle of one of those bad boys.

And why, you ask, dear reader?

Distance: 15.17 miles
Time: 01:17:38 minutes
Average speed: 12.13 mph
919 calories burned

Check out those calories, baby! That's a personal deep-dish pizza, girlfriend. Two snaps around the world and a buttsmack for Bob! Can I get a "Halleleuh!" from the choir?!

Back to the literary thing. I was getting happy feet at work, eager to shuck the immoral coils of the hourly wage life and excise the poisons I'd had for lunch. When the clock hit 5:00 PM, I was out the door before the PC finished powering down. Got home, packed some fleece in the backpack, threw on a bright orange shirt, and booked.

Above is a Mapquest picture of Carson and the blue line is a lame MS Paint expression of my trip (if you want graphical beauty, call Danielle). I call this, "The Three Albertsons," but it's actually two Albertsons (north and south) and the 7-11 on east Highway 50. I skipped the third Albertsons because that would shorten the trip (silly me).

There's so much going through my brain about this ride that I want to remember but the flesh is weak. A quick recap:

- There's no such thing as a flat road in this stinking town.
- The old couple holding hands, with him gently helping her over the curb.
- Me yelling at a driver for cutting me off in the Fifth Street traffic circle. She was on a cell phone, natch.
- Being blinded in both eyes by a sudden sweat attack and doing a fast stop without seeing where I was going.
- The frozen air around the pond behind the Railroad Museum.
- Pushing hard on the pedals to get an end result I could live with. I could live with those stats any day.
- Finishing the ride by going up the Fifth Street hill and not really minding at all.
- The other couple at the south Albertsons playing and touching each other, and the woman following them, admiring them, telling me, "Now that's love."

One last thought: there's no way I would have gone as far or as hard if the usual afternoon wind had been blowing. The lack of breeze made all the difference in the world.

Going to bed now. Good night.


19 days until the USN