I have a confession about my ride yesterday:  For the first time since I’ve been cycling, that’s three and a half years now, I didn’t want to go.  My friends all bailed for one reason or another, it was unseasonably cold and cloudy and both the Lions and Tigers had games on TV.  I hemmed and hawed for what felt like an hour, trying to come up with a good excuse that I could hang my hat on…  I’m an early morning weekend cyclist, I told myself (as if I would buy it).  No wonder I was having a tough time.  I don’t want to be cold, I thought.  When I’d had just about enough of my BS I started getting dressed.  Knee warmers, shorts, arm warmers, jersey, long sleeved jersey, vest and wool socks – it was 45 degrees.  I pumped up my tires, filled a water bottle and headed out the door.

I still went out for 30 miles.  Nothing to write home about but it’s not all that bad either.

Truthfully, I’d planned on 40 but the initial 20 into the wind really sucked the life out of me.  I’d managed a 17 mph average into town and I stopped by a couple of friend’s houses to see if I could refill my H2O bottle but nobody was home at either house and I was running low on water and energy so with the wind at my back I decided to see how fast I could get home.  I was averaging between  22 and 26 mph, depending on the terrain (slight uphill vs slight downhill – either way it was pretty flat).

In the end I got in a great workout.  I didn’t enjoy it very much but I got it done and that’s the important thing.

Sometimes getting out the door is hard.  We’ve got things to do, places to be, people to see…  All too often we can find reasons to skip a workout, even if it isn’t very good but the simple truth is this:

I’m not going to trade feeling like crap for the rest of my life so I can feel like a lame-ass today.  Either way, I lose.