Working Out With Mickey

This is me` after today's ride in Galveston. I am wasted, and I haven't even had anything to drink.

Yet.

A number of things made the ride a true challenge.

1. Spring forward. SUCKS. Note to self: if you're going to drive an hour and a half to an early morning start of a group ride, don't do it on the Sunday you lose an hour of sleep.


2. Garminectomy: I charged my Garmin last night, but it refused to turn on this morning. So, the only computer I had along for the ride was a Mickey Mouse watch.

I.Kid.You.Not.

No elapsed, time, no heart rate data, no miles per hour. Just Mickey.

3. Wind: Sweet baby Jeebus I don't know how the wind could have been much worse. It was two out and backs for a total of 80 miles, and the wind we never really at our backs. Going out, it was enough crossways that you still felt wind in your face. Coming back, it was right in your face off the front quarter, blowing in off the Gulf. That is why 80 miles took an ungodly 4 hours 55 minutes. Which brings me to number:

4. Weather.com blows: Weather.com said the wind would be 15 mph out of the SSE, which would have given us a great tailwind on the homeward leg. Instead, the wind was out of the NE and built up to 20+ mph, meaning I was reduced to a snot slinging, slobbering, grunting, quivering mass of not-nice-word spewing . . . canine. If it didn't rhyme with duck, I pretty much didn't say it in the last 10 miles of my ride. If it did rhyme with duck, I said it repeatedly in all its forms--verb, adverb, adjective, gerund, and I don't know what else.

I couldn't even keep track of my progress or estimate how much longer the insanity would go on, because Mickey would not tell me how many miles I had left. He just smiled up at me and moved his four-fingered gloves around the dial ever so slowly.

And then at the worst possible moment, while clawing back into the wind, the song "It's a Small World After All" got lodged in my head like a blood clot.

Kill.Me.Now.

But the best part of the ride was seeing that my Iron Friend is totally ready for Ironman Arizona. She broke me like a twig by 70 miles, and she kept going for 100. I am told that I was able to do such things last year. It must have been my evil twin, Skippy, because this greyhound is feeling it tonight.

I guess this is a deposit into the Bank of Ironman, but the customer service at this Bank sucks.