Technically, it wasn’t. Family’s starting to come in from out of town for our daughter’s graduation party and it’s been hectic for a week, but let’s not let that detail get in the way of a good post. Stay with me.

I dressed and rolled my bike out the front door at 4. We had rain coming and it was a little too close for comfort, but I wanted to get my heart pumping… and my gut won’t lose itself, as much as I wish it might. My father-in-law had just pulled into our driveway, but he shooed me out the door to get my workout in… and Josie was entertaining him.

Now, I threw my leg over the top tube and clipped in, pushing off as soon as I felt the snap of the cleat clipping into pedal, in one swift move, and I was looking left as the end of my driveway approached. No cars, look right quickly, and I’m heading north for the warmup mile.

My mind was cleared of all things work by the time I hit my first right turn… and it was all good times and noodle salad, for the next eleven miles.

I thought about how well my 5200 felt underneath me, the crispness of the shifts, the tight turns, the loud bee-like sound coming from the rear hub when I coasted… the headwind, the tailwind, how the sun felt on my skin… and the building clouds that threatened to spoil a perfectly good twelve miles.

It spit on me for a second, but that was it. Then I was done. And it was good. I thought a lot last night about how fortunate I am to ride. How fantastic.