nice and easy

i took it easy today. easy route, easy pace, easy mileage. the cold weather made it even easier, albeit somewhat irritating -- i'm a hot weather kinda guy. for example, my right foot is plenty-o-numb right now, and it's not from vibration but cold wind. might have to get me some foot warmers for the winter season.

two people in cars talked at me today: one (again!) while i was ascending, who wanted to know something (as best i could tell) about habanero meatballs. another shouted out of her convertible at me that (i think?) i have nice eyelids. i may have misunderstood, it was windy out there.

i did a lot of short, out of the saddle climbs. i want to figure out how to do longer climbs, but even short, easy-ish (7-9%) climbs get my hr maxed out pretty quickly. needs work.

i have a lot of time to think fun thoughts out there. at one point i was thinking of an acquaintance of mine who wants to do a triathlon but doesn't know how to cycle. were she to find out about hops cycling injury, she may be as put off by it as were the 3 other people i've tried to get cycling. so i figured i could blame it on the clipless pedals, and point out that triathlons predate clipless pedals. by how much, i wondered? thousands of years, i told myself. the first triathlon was held in ancient greece, in commemoration of the heroic journey of the great warrior bicycloces -- or was it triathlopolous? i don't remember the guy's name, but he was engaged in battle when his warship was sunk. he hopped overboard and swam a mile to shore, where he found a two wheeled chariot with no horse. powering the chariot himself, he traversed 40 miles before the wheels came off, whereupon he ran the remaining 10 miles to his home village, because he needed to get home for dinner, because his wife was cooking barbecue ribs, greens, and cornbread and he didn't want to miss that.

so ever since then, etc. etc. and so forth.

tho i get smoked on the hills now and then, it seems that lately more often than not it is i doing the smoking. this guy with a fanny pack and downtube shifters kept leapfrogging me on canada. after a while of this i decided i'd just draft him for a bit. i kept it not too close, and when we got to the first of the last two hills approaching 92, i dropped gears and spun past him. when i got to 92 i looked back and he was far, far behind me. he was pushing 30 on the flats and downhills but couldn't maintain 13 on the 4% uphill. what? anyhow, i could. so there you have it, for whatever that's worth.

also, my legs sure are tired from friday's run. i didn't used to get (what?) tired legs. that's new. i may be getting old.