Just get up and go.

Alone like this for about 50 miles of the 112 I rode today.

Location: Valencia, Spain
Ride Day: 112 Miles, 5,700ft of climbing

I have always found that when I don't know what's coming, I'm much better equipped to wrangle it into submission.

Tell me that you are super, super, super excited about next Saturday night and that everything is going to be awesome and the dinner will be perfect and the DJ will rock-ass, well then I'm likely to think about it from now until Saturday and then, if that Saturday isn't the way it was drafted, eh, I'm likely to be disappointed.



Why do we do this to ourselves? People do it with weddings, with birthdays, with special nights, with first time kisses, with new cars, with new pets, with fill-in-the-blank. Consistently, we set ourselves up for the "self-grift"; we con ourselves and are left naked and holding the sheets to our face, wondering how we could have allowed ourselves to be so fooled.

Yeah, sometimes it works out. But sometimes it does not. And when it does not, it's still not as bad as we think, but it seems that way because we spent too much time imagining what it was going to be like without knowing a thing about it.

That's Cialis for Cyclists. 

Ask yourself this: was it really that bad or was it not so great because you spent months fantasizing about how great it was going to be? Or weeks, or days? Doesn't matter how long. Think of how long you thought about having sex for the first time and how that particular event measured up...

I think that, at least for me, it's better just to "do."

So the other night, when I realized that I only had one more day to ride my bike before my return to the states, I decided to do a monster ride on the following day. All I knew was that I wanted to ride as long as I could.

It seemed easy because I didn't have tons of time to think about it. It seemed like it flew by because I had not considered how long it would take, which was about 8 hours (with stops.)

I lose my interest, in general, around the 7th hour. I've been on a few long rides like this and that's always the case. At hour 7, I want some pizza, a hot shower, and a cold beer. That's me being a cyclist but also being an amateur cyclist and also 39 years old. Dude needs his beer.

The beginning and end was not so great, but the middle was chewy and perfect. For about 50 miles I only had, maybe, 6 cars pass me. Great roads, great views, and a bar right in the middle to supply me with water, an espresso, and two ice cream cones.

Oh, and I decided I am getting that tattoo after all. I've thought about it enough. Time to "do."