T91 - Improvment can Throw you Off - Bike

Gainesville

I had to get my oil changed Tuesday, and for whatever reason every single shop in Gainesville takes 2 hours to do it. Even Jiffy Lube. So I figured that window would be a perfect amount of time to get in a bike ride while I waited. I took my car to a shop by my old apartment in Duck Pond so, for old times sike, I decided to bike up Waldo Road to Waldo and back. That used to take me about 2 hours from my old apartment, so I figured it would be close enough.

Bike - 2 hours, easy spinning RPE 3

2 Lipodrene
I immediately remembered why I never bike Waldo anymore. It's not so much the constant parade of semis once you hit the highway, but the street crossings at the begining. Waldo has this nice greenway bike lane park thing (usually populated by Gainesville's finest meth addicts and homeless) but when it crossees a road, it almost always includes at least one 90-degree turn. And despite all my time on the bike, I still can't do those. So I'd have to either slow down to an almost-stop, or stop completely, unclip, and start up again when I got to the straightaway. I even off-roaded a bit to avoid one turn. Basically, the course sucks.

But I did find myself going a lot faster than I used to. I was going probably 22 the whole way up, a fact that forced me to lok over at the plants on the side of the road and see I had a pretty nice tailwind. I'm not a fan of tailwinds on the way out either. Because I had to be back to the shop before it closed at 6, I had to bike by real time instead of road time, especially on Waldo where theres a lot of lights and stopping you don't want to do. Anyway, I left at 3:38 so I figured I'd give meself an extra 8 minutes to get back, accounting for the wind, so I'd turn around at 4:34.

Problem was, it doesn't take me an hour to get to Waldo anymore. I rolled up to the Hardee's at the junction to U.S. 301 at about 4:22. Well, there's no bike lane on 301, and i'ts a pretty crowded road, so I opted to turn around. Had a gel, and headed back, pruposefully going 25 through the area where I got my school zone speeding ticket. Sadly, there was no school zone today.

The wind on the way back was not fun, and even though I didn't feel tired, I felt achy and fatigued. Like my shoulders got sore immediately, and my hips were aching for some reason. I even felt a little dizzy and tired and found myself standing up at about the 55 minute mark (in the saddle, I didn't stop). I'm hoping this is just residual sickness, but who knows. I fought the wind ok, I guess, but my average speed dropped from 19.2 on the way out to 17.9 by the time I finished. I seem to be coming up just short of all my goals lately. I finished in 1:42 minutes of real time, which included stopping at the turnaorund and the endless parade of lights on Waldo. So the increased return time didn't concern me a whole lot. And for whatever reason once I've biked my planned course for the day, I don't extend it. If I got it done too fast, oh well. I have plenty that take longer than expected too.

What did conern me was the fact that I felt tired on a pretty short bike ride. I'm not sure if I've just lost my enthusiasm for short, non-intense rides like this one, or if I still feel sick. But I'm not sure how this bodes for Panama City this weekend. I gotta do 112 miles on Friday, that's no fucking joke. And the fact that I felt realy ytired and lathargic after the ride is not a good sign. This is a new thing, and maybe it is just part of the virus still lingering. But I need it to go away and go away fast.