On being a Wuss

Went for a ride with Richard on Saturday. Honestly it was my first cold road ride. I use to mountain bike in the cold, but you just aren't moving so fast AND you're generating heat. Its a bit warmer. I even went mountian biking in the snow and ice. Ok, that was just plain dumb.

(Note to self - this Microsoft keyboard doesn't have good key click. Will it break in? Hard to type fast).

So, we hit the road. No idea what the temp was, high 40s maybe? Low 50s? All I know is it was pretty chilly. And, there was this head wind. So, that means the windchill was at least -60 for sure. I have warm socks and some toe covers, but my toes were still really cold. My gloves were too tight, so I need new ones. Rest of me wasn't too bad. Could probably use a little more warmth, but it was ok. A balaclava would have kept my neck a little warmer. I pulled for the begining of the ride. I think I was going a whopping 14 mph. ugh. Thighs hurt. Not sure why.

Richard took over around halfway or so and that was nice. Whew. Drafting FTW!! The ride back wasn't as bad, but weren't breaking any speed records. Still, it was nice to get out on the road again.

Oh, and I hate my pedals again.

I'm on the new 'puter now. Most things are working ok. I had been getting a couple of errors on boot, but that seems to have worked itself out. I'm pretty big on letting things fix themselves. I finally ran my monitor probe tonight and it looks soooooooooooo much better. I'll run through the calibration again, just to be sure, then move on to the printer. Maybe I'll finally be able to get prints that match what I see on the screen.

Otherwise, I'm still tackling the mess that surrounds me down here in the man room.

Got back to the gym tonight and insanity set in. Lets just crank the resistance up on the X trainer. Woo hoo. You know its too high when you simply can't push the pedals down without almost jumping. But I managed, if at a slower pace.

Did free weights instead of the machines. Tomorrow should be interesting. Someone was using my usual weight, so I figured I should move up anyway. Yeah.......

Seriously, I usually go for reps as I'm more concerned about the exercise than the strength, but I know I need more strength. I think this winter will be an exercise in going up in weight. Now, do keep in mind that I only have a little idea of what I'm doing and I only use dumbells (insert obligitory joke here). I don't know enough about what I'm doing with a bar and I work out alone, so it just seems better this way. We'll see. I really want to increase my leg strength so I can climb better on the bike.

And, in the spirit of goals, my little one this year is to do a century. And do it in a reasonable amount of time. Naturally I'm not sure what that amount of time is which gives me a great out. I just want to keep a good pace for it. Hopefully I can figure out what that should be in early spring.

And to answer the question, the tattoos are fine. They are still shiny, so its a bit tough to tell if they need touching up. Well, the Gabba Gabba Hey one doesn't, I'm sure. The EN man may. I've never closely looked at anyone elses tribal style tat, so I don't know how even any of them look. I think its too soon to tell. I can say that it flaked more than my others, but that makes sense. I've moved on to my 2nd container of Eucerin (1 per year, more or less). I'll keep it up until they aren't shiny and raised. Hope all the Tri-Girls tats are healing equally well.

Werd.