enough of this no blogging!

okay, i can't take it anymore, i must a-blog. so here it goes. forgive me if i've gotten rusty.

the tour de palm springs is less than 6 weeks away. it will be my first century. here's the route from 2007, according to Some Guy. as you can see, despite his moniker of "difficult", it's actually an easy century. the dude what lives across the street from my folks, who's ridden it before, says it's one of the easiest centuries out there. perfect for my first one.

so i got way out of shape over the last 2 months, as expected. three things conspired to make me flabby, out of breath, and slow: barbecue, beer, the gawdawful weather around here, and my ps3. yeah, that's four. deal with it.

i will blog about my beer tour of san diego county, i promise. just not right now.

so i dug up a training plan from a book on long distance cycling, you know the one, it's by a couple editors from a cycling magazine. problem one: all the training plans start 8 or ten weeks from the event. but i managed to find one that assumes i've never ridden a bike before, or something, and i chopped off the first half of it, and then set the weekly mileage increase at 15% instead of the recommended 10%, and figured that as long as i don't injure myself, as long as i make some progress, any progress, and burn off some of this beer and barbecue, i'll be in good enough shape to finish The Easiest Century Out There.

but there's another problem: the training plan calls for long, flat rides with a group. that's a good idea, because the tour itself is a long, flat ride with a group. but here's the rub: i don't have any friends or any flats. assuming i could make some biking buddies, there isn't any place in this county to do a long ride of any substantial distance, unless i want to drive somewhere, or do laps. bleh. so for the purposes of training, i'm designating any grade less than 7% as "flat". that means the 40 mile canada-to-alpine-and-back route is flat, even though it has a good 2600 feet of elevation gain.

2600 feet, that number seems close to something... oh right, it's a measly 400 feet less than the entire elevation gain of the entire century i plan to do. that's good!

the real worrisome part is the start time: 7am for me, mister century guy. that means i have to get up before 5am, since it takes me 2 hours to wake up and "get ready" on a good day. that day i'll have to deal with getting to the ride and all that. i suppose i could ride to it, i think the start is less than 15 miles from the folks' house -- but maybe i shouldn't push it that much. still, i have no training plan for waking up at 5am. i could do it, i guess, but it'd take longer than 6 weeks.

i rode yesterday and today, as per my plan. today was hills, and i did a whopping 13 miles, with one hour on the bike, for a total ele gain of 1600 feet. yay me. i found a route from crystal springs to parrot, via my old pal ascension drive, plus some additional heart pounding climbing. that was great fun, and put me in a good mood. yesterday's ride, not so much: it was colder, and longer, and demonstrated to me that i'm outta shape. i did ride in a couple impromptu groups, and that was swell, but i fell on the bike. yep, i've finally had my first fall, proving that dude right who said that falling wasn't a matter of if, but when.

i'd just finished the climb up the ralston trail, which is effectively the end of the ride, since it's 4 miles straight downhill from there to my digs. if you've been at the stoplight there, you know it's relatively tricky to stop and dismount, if you wish to stop and dismount right by the traffic light, so you can push the crosswalk button. all those ifs and so's apply to me, 'cause that's how i've always done it. the pavement is slopey, uneven, and riddled with shards of glass, hunks of sharp metal, and piles of other tire hazards. anyhow, i unclipped left, as always, but somehow managed to lean right. that's the recipe for a fall, and fall i did, though as hops says, it's more of a "going over" than a fall. i sustained no injuries that i'm presently aware of, which is good, though that makes fall #2 on my right knee, which is really bad. i think the side of my calf/shin and my hand took most of the fall, which is great because those parts of me are beefy and not bony. i finished the ride, cold, starving (took a late start, missed lunch, was miserly with my goo packs), pissed off, and a little grated on the leg. still, i finished the ride.

after some putzing around in the afternoons, hops and i went down to spudnutz's house for some smoked pulled pork. this time, he pretty much nailed it -- it was the best home-cooked pulled pork i've had, including my two failed attempts. it wasn't as smoky as my or his first attempts, though, which i told him and expect to be rectified next time (or else!).

i've got tons of beer in the fridge, the closet, the other closet, the kegerator, and probably elsewhere, as a result of my trip to san diego, and as a result of being me. i went to beltramo's the other day and was untempted by the whiskeys, but bought some beer. i'm in a beer cycle right now but until after the tdps i don't want to drink much -- need to be light on the bike! oh the torment.

anyhow, despite the fall, yesterday, i didn't have to use my AK. we'll see how today goes.