winter blues

The stinky thing about riding long miles in the winter is that it's winter.

Riding bikes is almost always fun, but when I'm winter riding, +/- two hrs in the saddle everyday, battling frigid winds, dodging frozen puddles, looking over yet another depressing sheered cornfield...well, it gets old.

And, truth be known, it's not even that cold here. With temps in the high 40s in January, who can complain?

I can.

Winter hasn't hardly begun and I'm longing for the warm spring sun.

...

So I played football on New Year's Day for a couple of hours. Just a bunch of guys and a kid from the neighborhood. Two-hand touch. Afterwards I knew I'd be sore and stiff. All the fast starts and stops and moving my body in ways it's not normally moved. But I didn't expect to be as sore as I am. I'm so sore, everywhere, that it even hurts to cough. That's right, I strained the muscles around my rib cage. Ridiculous.

To make matters worse, I came home Monday and did my weight lifting routine--a bunch of squats and lunge squats mostly--and added an extra ten pounds from what I've been doing.

Now here it is Wednesday and I can hardly walk. My legs are so stiff and sore that I find myself walking like Frankenstein. Unbelievable.

I can't help but keep thinking that when I was eighteen my body didn't act like this, and I find the thought moderately offensive. But it makes me want to work harder...after my hamstrings loosen enough to walk down the stairs without a waddle.