Suprisingly Fun Ride

I love it when a workout happens to surprise me in a good way. I had a crappy day at work today and ended up working 9.5 hours. Then I came home and painted since I seem to have never-ending paint projects around the house. At that point, I was losing motivation to do anything and settled on 30 minutes on the trainer.

I set everything up and after 2 minutes I realized I would much rather be outside, even for just a little bit. I leaned my bike against the garage and hit the button to shut the door. Right as I was about to step in the house to tell John I was leaving, I realized my handle bars were in the path of the garage door and we don't have one with a safety mechanism. We have an old-school door that will smush unsupervised children and animals. Good thing we don't have any of those. I managed to tilt my bike and get it out right as the door came down, cursing the whole time. Stupid, stupid.

I get out of the drive way and I noticed my bike was riding very smooth and it was climbing hard. Did I really forget to inflate my tires? (I actually hadn't re-inflated them after reassembling my bike, which tells you how long it's been since I've ridden). Yeah, 75 psi. Nice job, Sam. Turn around in the church parking lot and head home.

Back in the garage to get my pump (covered in spider webs, none the less. Serves me right). Get my tires pumped up and I'm off. Again. I cross 75th street and I'm cruising down a hill when I realize my eyes are kinda dry. Jeez, I forgot my glasses. Are you kidding me? Did I remember my helmet? Clothes? Head? Oh well. At this point, I figure I'll put in 5 miles and turn around. I was way beyond caring about my ride.

The funny thing is that it was a GREAT ride! Maybe since I wasn't concerned with time, distance, cadence or anything else, I just had fun. I felt like I was really cruising through some of the neighborhoods. The air was nice, a little cool and very fragrant, and the roads I was on were mostly shaded. At one point, I herded a goose for the benefit of traffic. One stray goose was waddling down the center line of two lanes of traffic. Two mini-vans had pulled up in front of me waiting for it to cross, but it kept waddling right down the center line. Both cars had their windows down, so I rolled in between them.

"I'll get him."

I ushered him to one side so the que of 6 cars now behind us could keep moving. I slowly rolled on the shoulder to let all the cars around until I could get clipped back in. I thought it was hilarious. I even had one lady say thank you out her window.

I put in 7 miles without looking at my computer, and since I was having fun I decided to put in 10 before I turned around so it would be a decent ride. I did the 20 miles in 1:05, and that was with stop lights and a Canadian goose. Not bad. I love it when a crappy day ends with a great workout.