Miasses Draggin'

Finally trying to get back to being serious with my riding and I picked a heck of a day to start. This morning the temp was 38 degrees (wind chill of 31) with a nice 9 mph wind out of the northwest that we were going to be heading into. This ride was one that Mack put together for a distance of 100 miles and I was hoping I would be able to do it. My plan was to make a decision at the 30-mile mark as to whether I could do the whole ride or not...at that point I would end up with at least 60 miles anyway, a decent distance to cover at the beginning of my "serious" training. We had seven riders at the start and we were going to try to stay at a good 17-18 mph pace...after all, this is not a race and the main goal at this time is to get some saddle time and some miles in our legs. No need to rip them up when it doesn't matter. However, my legs were not in the mood and I knew that about 10 miles into the ride. Sometimes you have days like that. Even pushing a measly 18 mph seemed like the greatest effort and I was getting more flustered. The wind in our faces was not helping and its speed was increasing as the morning went on...at least we had some nice sunshine instead of the depressing clouds that seemed to stick around all last week.

I got dropped at one point about 22 miles in but caught back up, strangely enough feeling better by then and was able to climb a couple of hills with better effort, but then my legs started feeling bad again, working way too hard to keep up with the group for the effort they were putting out. When we got to the 30-mile point, Roland and I decided that it was better to head back home than try to be heros. So the two of us headed back to Shreveport from wherever we were in East Texas while the rest of the group went on (I heard later that they were plenty wiped out from their longer ride!). The nice part of our return was that the wind was now at our back and we would find ourselves cruising at 22-24 mph with little effort. I ended up with 63.1 miles and a tired pair of legs. I'll try again tomorrow but will only do about 40 miles with a mile run immediately after I finish. Hope the legs hold up!

Later in the day Jonnene and I took the dogs to the groomers' to give them a bath. Coober has probably never had a proper bath in his life so that was an experience for us all. He wasn't amused and would try to fight it but many times he'd just succumb and stand there dealing with it. When we used a blow dryer on him he's just scrunch up and bury his head into the crook of my arm and keep it there, probably going to his "happy place" in his head to get away from that loud thing constantly exhaling on him.

Sophie (at right) looks on as Jonnene washes Coober. He's not happy.

But he's clean and shiny and smells good now. Hopefully the more we do this he'll start to settle down and understand that he's not going to get hurt and that there's nothing to be afraid of. He actually was quite good, considering, because I wasn't sure if he'd just go nuts or be too submissive. He got to sniff at some of the other dogs there as well as the groomers on hand.