Day 210: Bracing for the Storms

As the weather people say, “The storm door is opening.” The extended 10-day forecast is for rain every single day. This is going to be a rough patch for me, and I was already feeling a little bit down in the dumps from the consecutive gray days that we were having in late December and early January. Well at least the rains are exciting to some degree, so maybe that will help to keep my spirits up.

On Sunday I’ll at least have a whole crew of new riding buddies to help me along. It will be my first day as a “ride leader” for two of the local high school mountain bike teams. I’m volunteering my time to what’s proving to be an exploding high school team sport. My friend “El” is on one of the teams and that’s one of my main reasons for volunteering my time, but I’m also doing it for the sport. The league is called NorCal. It’s so inspiring to know that so many youngsters are getting into the sport. It’s good for cycling at so many levels! So I hope that I’m now in good enough shape to run circles around these teenagers, but there’s nothing like youthful legs to make an old guys, like mine, hurt.

In an effort to move on with my life, I’ve been doing a little house cleaning and reorganization. It’s been difficult for me to find the energy to deal with closets full of stuff from my marriage. It reminded to a lesser degree of cleaning out my dad’s house after my mom died. It’s just one memory after another, and that’s no fun. Anyway, I digress.

During my cleaning spree I found all of my X-rays from my elbow surgery. The one pictured was the first one that I saw and at the time I had no idea that it meant that I’d be in an operating room know more than an hour later. My elbow must have really taken a blow in order to rip the back piece of right off. It was literally snapped off, as opposed to broken like a twig. That was a very long day that was followed by weeks of physical recovery, and then it's taken me years to regain my confidence while riding on the road. One never forgets being hit by a truck, and I was lucky that day that I wasn’t in surgery for more than my elbow. Memory lane…

Tugboat is telling me that it’s time to go, go, go. So I’m going.

Distance: 20.60 miles
Calories burned: 1,581
Time: 1:54:02 hours
Elevation gain: 2,139 ft
Garmin Connect ride details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22426534