Back From Vacation, Back To Normal

Today's fun route was completed clockwise.

Yesterday was unconventional. As October 8 began, I was at a highway rest area, desperately trying to sleep in my car after completing half of the drive back from my mother’s house in suburban Philadelphia. I got about two hours of fitful sleep before I resumed. When I got to West Bend at 7 a.m., I still wasn’t done. I hit the grocery store, knowing that if I allowed myself to go home first I wouldn’t want to go out again. I had emptied the house of food before my vacation, and on Saturday I bought just enough to keep me going until Thursday, my next day off. Last night was the start of my new work week. I didn’t do much during the day. I even got a little more sleep, and my energy level was sufficient to get me through the night. Being a bum on Saturday was the right call. I would have been a fool to ride my bike for the sake of a few low quality miles.

Things are back to normal today. I did a good 40-mile road ride to complete a 9-hour, 150-mile week. During my vacation, which began on September 29, I rode a total of 160 miles. Curse you, Hurricane Ian, for preventing me from doing even more. I surpassed 85,000 lifetime miles on October 6, which also means I surpassed my goal of 3,612 miles in 2022. It would be nice to complete another 4,000-mile season and to earn a couple of additional Garmin Connect badges. However, I won’t endure too much cold weather in those pursuits. And cold weather is imminent: we may see overnight lows below the freezing mark by Thursday, and by next Sunday we will struggle to reach 40 degrees in the afternoons! But so far Saturday afternoon looks OK, and if that forecast holds then I might line up for the WCA cyclocross race in Richfield. A lot depends not just on the weather, but also on my training and on my left calf muscle, which has felt good for the last week but hasn’t really been tested. I still worry about having to run. I thought I was fit enough for the Manitowoc race until I felt the muscle snap.

There was no strength training for me during my trip. I’m looking forward to my return to the home gym tomorrow. And I chose not to attend today’s UCI World Cup cyclocross races at Trek headquarters in Waterloo. After working all night and with another overnight shift coming later today, I needed to use this afternoon for my own training ride. Like I said: back to normal. This week needs to be a return to normal hours, normal diet, normal training, and so on.