November?

What beautiful weather for the 8th of November. And I took full advantage too, despite being buried in work I made sure to just stop and hit the road by noon today. 40 miles later I have a couple stories for you.

Today I wanted to do lunch in...

 Wales of course! That would mean a pretty long ride for me considering I have not been on the bike doing any training the past month. But with weather that was sunny and low 60's at this time of year I was going to go for it with all I had.

I did my lunch there, my face being warmed by the brilliant sunshine as I sat at a picnic table.

The PB&J never tasted better than today either. The food was some welcome fuel after a hard-fought ride to get out there.

There were two kinds of pain on this ride today, the good kind and the bad kind. I experienced the good kind on the way out. While waiting in the middle of Moorland to cross I heard a squeaky noise behind me and suddenly there he went, a roadie sporting a Beans and Barley racing kit went sprinting through the intersection despite the fact that a couple of cars were coming toward us at a pretty good clip. I waited because there were no cars behind these two, and I have been trying to be a good ambassador for the sport. This dude should have waited too. That is the kind of stuff that makes a bad name for all of us with drivers.

Anyway, for some unknown reason after I crossed I decided that despite the fact that I had a long way to go I was going to pick up the pace and see if I could catch this guy. Why? Not sure. He was there. I was behind him by about a block.

I started in on making a big effort to close the gap. I was not gaining by much at all on the chase to Calhoun. Now, Calhoun to Springdale is a long stretch on the New Berlin trail and this would be where I would give it my all. I was going between 21.7 and 23.3 the entire time and hardly gaining. Chest heaving. Lungs pumping. Legs aching. I'd jump in and out of the saddle in the drops just to try to maintain enough to close the gap. Meantime this younger, stronger, faster kid looked like he was hardly making an effort to do this.

I would drop off a bit to recover, then try again. At one point, with snot now freely flying out of my nose and my body moving all over the machine I must have looked like a raving madman. I remember hardly having enough breath to say to myself out loud, "Oh God."

I lost him heading into the Waukesha industrial area. It was not to be today. Then heading into town he passed me going the other way after having turned around ahead. I gave a slight nod to him and kept going.

That's the GOOD pain of the ride.

After my lunch I enjoyed taking it easy on the way back to Waukesha, knowing I would be tired. Little did I know how bad that would become.

Going up the hill at Carroll College my quads started to cramp. Within a mile the threat of bad cramps turned into reality. Now the entire muscle on the inside of my left thigh running down to my knee was knotting up. If this has ever happened to you then you know what kind of crazy pain this is. You can't ride if it gets bad enough.

I babied it for a pretty good stretch, rubbing my hands into my legs and pounding the knotting muscles in an attempt to ward off a complete lockup. It happened with only three miles to go when I went up a slight uphill at Greenfield Park golf course. My leg got so bad I had to hop off the bike and get control of myself.

Needless to say it was tricky getting home the rest of the way. And needless to say, this is the BAD pain of the ride. But then again, how bad can anything be when the sun is out and it's 63 degrees on November 8th in Milwaukee and I'm out riding!

Season Miles: 2,769