Friday morning roll with a smile. Ignore the rain.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I actually enjoy running, biking, and swimming.  Training for a big event seems to suck all the enjoyment out of these activities.  All the focus on heart rate, nutrition, recovery, speed, limiting risk, peaking and tapering can make everything too clinical. 

Friday morning, the road was soaked from rain the night before.  As is customary for the days when I plan on riding 100 miles or more, mother nature does her best to sabotage those plans.  (See, e.g., derecho, merciless downpour, and a freezing cold ride in the rain that I had to cut short because I could no longer feel my hands.)  Since it takes me hours to clean up my tri bike after a rainy ride, and since the tri bike is 15 times more dangerous on wet roads, I decided to take the MacAttac instead.  I maintained a moderate pace, but I took the time to enjoy the time on the trail.  I really am lucky to be able to ride a bike and enjoy nature on these rides.

This is actually a photo from a 50-miler a few weeks ago, when the weather was much nicer for a ride.  But my smile on Friday was just as wide.

The ride was not without its challenges.  I came screaming across an intersection just before a light changed, and when I hit the trail on the other side, my front tire went flat ... quickly.  Not only was the tube flat, but my tire had a gaping hole in it.

Here's a tip from my days as a mountain biker.  When your tire looks like this:

Take a dollar bill, fold it up, and put it on the inside of your tire (between the tube and the tire).  It will keep your innertube from bulging out of a hole like this, and it will keep road debris from entering the hole and popping the tube.  Believe me, it works.  (I rode the last 17 miles of my ride with Abe Lincoln staring through this hole.) 

After fixing the flat, I ran out of calories and nearly wrecked on an uneven section of pavement in a dark tunnel.  And my road bike picked up a pound of road sludge that may never come off.  But on a ride like this, nothing could get me down.  I committed myself to enjoying more rides just like this one.