Geek Habitat

Did 19.23 miles (ride stats) with Justin and David today. Justin suffered a punctured front tire so we had a delay toward the latter 1/3 of the ride, but it was my favorite route to date — challenging but some recovery spots and an awesome downhill segment just when your excitement/energy might be flagging. Feeling good–usual post-ride soreness of course, but didn’t find myself cursing my fat arse quite so much… at least not out loud (I really need to work on that… although I am among adults, so maybe I need to keep it as my outlet?

TO DO’s:
I need to mount the road bike to the CycleOps indoor trainer and practice shifting between the big chainring and the small chainring. I have a really bad habit of dropping my chain, and need to work that out before I’m ready to transition back to “clipless” pedals.

I need to switch back to clipless pedals. I’m wearing flexible soled tennis shoes and it’s hurting my perpetually stubbed left little toe. I don’t like wearing my hiking shoes because they’re heavier than I want to pedal with and the laces would be no fun if they got sucked into my chainring. I really want to switch back to clipless pedals for the more efficient pedal stroke (generate power on both the upstroke and downstroke), but I’m nowhere near proficient enough yet on the road bike to be ready for clipless+bike handling 101+traffic (esp. the arses who think it’s fun to pass cyclists close enough that I could slap their vehicles.) I figure I need at least 100 miles under my belt on this bike. With our rides averaging over 15 miles each, that will be sooner than later.

I need to eat better. A “no duh” but sometimes we all need to be reminded of the obvious.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. BEFORE the ride. I chugged a whole Gatorade and felt a lot better than I do on rides where I forget to hydrate before the ride. Could still have used another 16 oz. of water before the start, at least. Shouldn’t be arriving back to the parking lot with BOTH of my water bottles empty considering it’s nowhere near summer yet and the guys are only carrying one water bottle each.

Stretch! No cramps on my rides so far, but really should be stretching beforehand. We did it in PT when I was rehabbing my knee, so why the heck wouldn’t I want to stretch before a 20 miler?

Buy a new helmet. This one officially sucks. That is all.

Find some cool bike jerseys that fit. My Google one? Sorry, but Hincapie brand cycling jerseys are cut to fit only one body type, and that’s George Hincapie’s/Lance Armstrong’s. My frame will never be comfy in it, even after I return to my pre-pregnancy weight and post-knee surgery fitness and muscle tone. I wanted to wait until I’d been back to the biking a bit and reward myself with a new jersey here and there to keep the motivation up. I love my Ireland jersey and while it’s tight right now it’s built-in motivation to lose the weight, shape up and fit it properly.

Gotta run; kidlet’s home from day with Grandma & Grandma Moore. I owe them HUGELY for this weekend!