I’m terrible about stretching, not only after a ride but in life generally. I have physical therapy prescribed exercises for my neck that I should do regularly and only do if it hurts! My whole body, and wife Kim might say my whole mind, is pretty inflexible. Yoga I am sure is the answer but I just have not become motivated. I guess some acute problem will arise and I will be motivated to get involved. One might think that not being able to turn my head enough to look over my shoulder while driving and stopped at an intersection to see if a car is coming would be considered acute. But not yet.
Back in the day, stretching was always done before effort, not after. The whole team warmed up with exercises before starting. Now we do ride slow for the first couple k but everyone seems to agree that stretching afterwards is where the real value lies. I just always forget. I did do a little after the ride just now but I just am board and ready to move onto something interesting like writing about not exercising!
I was more nervous than normal this morning. Woke up before the 5:30 alarm and had to make myself just stay in bed and try to fall back asleep. I make a rule of not looking at the clock so I have no idea if the alarm is 5 minutes or 3 hours away. Once the alarm goes off, I have a pretty fixed schedule or at least overall strategy. Other than remembering everything, the main focus is to eat yogurt or cherries asap so as to be able to have the maximum amount of time for the desired effect of going to the bathroom to unfold. Luckily, the effort of biking seems to prevent my body from needing a toilet but it sure would be bad if I did need one.
Sunday ride to Puerto Morelos I managed to forget the palm gloves we all wear to prevent numbness in the fingers. It seems there is a nerve in the palm of the hand right about where one places ones hands on the handlebars to support your upper body. I have been known to leave my NH house without my helmet but not here. I attach a blinking light to the helmet with a rubber band but do not turn on the blinker until the group ride starts. Saving battery life. There are no windows in my airbnb that get direct sunlight. I stated with 3 solar powered lights but one died. After the ride, I put them out on a rock wall in front of the apartment to get sunlight for the day. I take them in about 4pm. So far, so good. There are three pockets lined up next to each other across the back side of a cycling shirt. In the right one I put the phone. The middle one has the keys, a 5$ bill and one of my business cards upon the back of which I havev written “Emergency”, the code to my cell phone and 2 phone numbers for wife Kim. The last pocket used to have two extra lights but now only 1 and 5 rubber bands that can be used to mount a light on me or the bike. I should have signed up for the Road ID bracelet that is like a dog tag and many riders know about. The water bottle just stays with the bike. No need for sun glasses! The sun is just barely up when I return.
Last night, as part of getting the flat tire fixed, I did communicate with Martin the importance of letting me know about changes to Elite Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday ride schedule. I texted Edgar and he texted back that the Saturday ride was canceled as too many Elite riders were involved in some kind of 2 day tour away from Cancun that I saw the preparations for yesterday. So I went to the 6:15 Kilometer Zero location and Rubin was there with 2? other riders. By 6:10 we were up to 20. Rubin and 2 friends and I moved down on block to the road where Casablanca comes in. I think Rubin was waiting for them but when the 6:15 train came by, we jumped on that.
Start seemed a little fast to me. I made it to 5K but was working. Next goal was 9K and I was working harder by then. Made it to 13K with pant breathing and just let them ride off after that. My goal was to find a “bike breaking” pot hole that I have hit the last couple days and more importantly, record its location in my small oxygen deprived brain. I never found it. I have to assume it is lane dependent and I was mainly way over on the right today. I had had a bad experience Thursday? where a LARGE group of riders came upon me dodaling along at like the 24K mark. They of course passed me on the left but it felt very dangerous. We ride generally 2 by 2 and each group of 2, with their heads down, had to sus out that there was some idiot dropping back through the pack who had to be avoided with a violet movement to the left to get around. Of course that means the outside rider of the 2 has to make room for the inside rider who is on the who has noticed that what really acts liked a stopped rider has appeared in front of him. Anyway, today I has able to jump into a pull out just in time to avoid this fiasco. A number of other groups passed me. One of 2 men, 1 woman and no chase. One with 3 men and a woman and a chase. I was able to catch up to that one and they turned south toward Puerto Morelos as I headed North to Cancun. I could have stayed with them if I had been a little more daring. I did try a little conversation and got the impression that they did not speak English. What I really desire is someone to ride slowly, speak English and take my mind off the effort! Their pace was ok. Of course Saturday attracts a bumper crop of riders. I’m sure there were a couple more groups that I have forgotten.
I had an easy ride home. The dogs did not bother to get up. I did hit one stretch of bad gravel where I felt I might lose it but stayed upright. The bike path came before I expected it and Saturday traffic as I reentered Cancun streets was of course light.
As I said, I was a little nervous at the start but now the endorphins of exercise seem to have moved my mind back to a reasonable place.