The rare no-ride weekend

This last weekend was absolutely perfect for riding.  The crisp morning air, bright sunshine, and leaves changing colors on the vines was magical.  All weekend long my road bike, Thomas, stood in the garage just waiting for me to slip the water bottles in their cages, pop on the Garmin and hit the road.  Around 3:00 Sunday afternoon he finally gave up and went over to bitch about me to the single speed.

I have no idea as to why I didn’t ride.  It wasn’t planned. In fact, the exact opposite would be true.  I had planned on riding both days.  I even had routes picked out for both rides.  It just didn’t happen.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve started my off season. At this point, the big charity rides are over so I’m no longer training for an event.  Maybe it was the feeling of not having to ride that created its own self-fulfilling prophecy.  You know, that whole I-don’t-have-to-ride-so-I-didn’t-ride effect.  It’s also the off season for NorCal Velo, which is my club, and we only have organized rides on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month.

I actually have a semi-decent excuse for not riding on Saturday. I’m always up at 5:00 a.m. and the early morning hours is when I do most of my writing.  After making coffee, checking email, goofing off on Facebook, and reading Cycling News, I started working on my book.  A few minutes later I found that I was in one of those writing zones when thoughts are coming together faster than I can type.

This was very exciting since I’ve found the book writing to be challenging as of late.  Chapters 1-6 are complete and in the hands of my trusty editor.  The remaining chapters are outlined so I know what I’m going to write.  However, the section on Spring, which is chapters 7-9, is proving to be a real pain so on Saturday I started on chapter 10.  I also completed chapter 10 and sent it off.

Sunday was a whole different story.  I knew I was riding Sunday because I didn’t ride Saturday.  Once again, I started writing as I waited for day break.  It was not the same flow as Saturday but I did make progress on chapter 7 so that was a good thing.

I decided to wait and ride in the afternoon and started completing a few chores around the house.  I painted a few spots on the house that needed touching up and clean out the garden for the winter.  Sherry and I went to the Farmer’s Market for some nice veggies and then out to breakfast.  As the day moved on I slowly began to realize that a ride was not going to happen.

In a funny way not riding was its own reward.  I’m actually a little proud of the fact that I am not so hell bound to ride that I can’t take the occasional weekend off and not worry about it.  I told Coach Tim about not riding and his response was “good for you!”  Don’t get me wrong, I still love cycling but a break every now and then is a good thing.

Next Saturday is the 3rd of the month so there will be a club ride.  I may even be the one who leads it.  Either way, I will be riding next weekend.  I’m sure it will be a blast and an immediate reminder of why I love riding in the first place.

Until then, I need to go apologize to Thomas and the single speed.

Ciao!