Pfffffft #2

I had my second flat of the year on Sunday, but this time it wasn't a tire. It was me.

Friday evening was a night off from training as usual, and my high school friend Maria and her new fiancee Adam came in town for a visit. We dined out and then stayed up until after midnight eating ice cream and catching up. Sue and I were nearly dead by lights out at 12:30, at least two and a half hours past our normal bed time.

My aching back woke me up a little after 7am (don't get me started about expensive mattresses that break down in a year and a half) and after another half day of visiting, I was toasted. I had also recently started The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear, a book my mom had given me recently, and it was all too easy to nap and read the rest of the day away.

I was paged for work at 3:30am Sunday morning, got up and fixed the problem quickly, but upon returning to bed, found my back in knots again, and I sent the rest of the "night" tossing and turning and rarely sleeping. I have to figure this back problem out. I'm fine standing and sitting and deadlifting and squatting large heavy weights, but as soon as I lay down, the muscles in my back start to cramp up and often after about six hours, are nearly in full spasm.

So Sunday was another banner day for lack of motivation. I spent most of the morning nearly asleep, then dragged myself into the attic with a schedule for three hours on the rollers, to include 4x12min threshold intervals, and with the thoughts I should probably throw in some muscle tension intervals I skipped on Saturday.

Well, while stretching and putting on my shoes at a snail's pace, I finished off the movie Seven I had started a couple weeks ago. (Good movie. See it if you haven't.) I then put in Pirates of the Caribbean (mildly entertaining, but that's about it. Don't bother.) and finally got on the bike.

I warmed up for about twenty minutes, but my legs felt very sluggish. I pushed through one of the LT intervals, and it went fine, but was mentally draining. After that, I spent several minutes stopping, leaning on the chair next to me, pedalling again, stopping, starting, stopping, starting... stopping.

I went flat. I could feel future podium places slipping out of my grasp as I dismounted, but I didn't care. I stretched a little while watching the rest of the movie, ate dinner with friends, watched Little Bobbie Julich take the Paris-Nice prolouge by .71 seconds, sat to type this blog entry, and now I'm off to an early bedtime. Either I'm getting sick or else my friends brought their cats' hair into the house on their clothing (entirely possible) because now my head is blocked up solid and my throat is scratchy. I just have to make it through the next four days putting in some good spins on the rollers, because the Friday forecast calls for unseasonably warm and dry, with a 95% chance of skipping out of a half day of work for a remotivating ride outside in the fresh air.

Early to bed, early to back spasms, I always say. Maybe I'll check back in with you in the early morning hours if I find myself thrashing around in bed again.

Sleep well.