16 October, 2006

Slacker with a capital slack

Yes, that's right. I have nothing to report about Saturday's PBA Fall Century ride. It's not that I'm too lazy to type it up, as believable as that might be. It's because I didn't go.

As of Friday afternoon, I was still waffling. With my confidence shaken by a couple sub-par (in my opinion) performances in the preceding weeks, and considering my general malaise, I came up with a short list of reasons why giving it a miss would be the smart and responsible thing to do:
  1. I had missed church the previous two weekends, first because Turtle and I were in San Antonio, and then last weekend because the Bonham ride and trip home took me longer than I had estimated. And then on Sunday evening, when I had intended to go, I fell into my usual Sunday routine and forgot. If I did the century, I wouldn't make it home in time to go again this week—and would be too exhausted to go, in any case.
  2. Time. At a 15 mph pace, I estimated that it would take in excess of 9 hours to complete the ride. Figure about 6½ hours of actual riding and at least another 2 or 3 hours for a lunch break and other stops.
  3. Turtle had been patiently waiting for a block of my time so that we could put together the initial design template for her business web site. If I did the century, I'd be gone all day Saturday (see #2) and most likely wiped out for a lot of Sunday.
  4. The weather forecast called for 20% chance of thunderstorms starting Saturday afternoon. The prospect of riding the latter portion of a 100-mile ride in the rain and having to dodge lightning bolts didn't thrill me.
  5. Finally, if it turned out that I'm just not strong enough to go the distance, Turtle would already be a good hour and a half away (at church) when I discovered it. There'd be no one to come and retrieve my capital-L-on-the-forehead-wearing butt.
So I wimped out, instead choosing to do one of my usual 40-mile Saturday morning rides (which was lovely, thanks for asking). I also got churched up, Saturday evening. That must've been the right thing to do, because we were blessed with a slow, steady, all-day rain on Sunday. Perfect weather for putting together a reasonably presentable web site template for Turtle (though the font on the header graphic still looks dodgy to me (sorry, Dear)), only taking short breaks to eat and watch an episode of Carnivale: Season Two.

If you want to know how the Fall Century went, you'll have to wait and see if rcarlino (who probably didn't wimp out) posts a comment about it.

4 comments:

Allez said...

I loved the rain on Sunday!

Anonymous said...

Foo, yes, I did do the PBA Fall Century on Saturday and felt pretty good afterwards. A little sore in spots, but otherwise OK. Actually, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I still wouldn't call it "easy", but it wasn't really a torture test either. I thought the Collin Classic 75-mile ride back in June in 97 degree heat was far more difficult. I think you're selling yourself short on your athletic abilities--you would have been just fine. I would have enjoyed your company on the ride, although a certain sub-5-ft tall blonde woman with a bellowing "LEFT TURN", "RIGHT TURN" in a decidedly French accent ensured that nobody felt bored on the ride. There were plenty of rest stops and the PBA prez, Chris, kept the pace nice and moderate (there were 3 groups--one fast, one moderate, and one slow. I went with Chris on the moderate one). Oh, and the rain stayed away too. Temperature was perfect. All in all a great ride. You will definitely have to do this one next time.

Gwynne said...

You did the right thing. :-)

Lou said...

You made time for the Turtle!
That was nice!
Wasn't it Turle???

B-)

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