bike ride

Just touching base regarding my mountain biking... I thought that I would throw out the fact that I went on a bike ride this past weekend.  The trails were closed, but there were some old railroad track roads out there to ride on so I finally got the bike dirty... white bike turns brown... Yeah!  I also got to see how badly I needed to ride.  The ride was great for reducing the stress in my already overloaded stressed out life - my way of closing out the problems I have (or at least forgetting about them) is to ride until I am dead.  But, after an hour of riding, I was beat and slowing down the guys that I was riding with.  The legs were gone, the lungs were begging for air, the heart was pushing out of my chest, life was far from being a joy at that particular moment in time.  So much for the stress reducer... now I was stressing about how slow I was, how out of shape I was, and how I was slowing down the other guys.  Basically by the end of the ride, they left me alone to grind up the last big hill back to the car.  Last year, generally it was me leading the pack or at least staying right there.  Revenge on their part?  Not sure.  (Smiles I am sure...) Humbled rider on my part? yes... The best part though was being able to eat some fantastic food Sunday evening...Cinco de Mayo one day early.  Calories going out means calories can go in.  This summer... more riding and a better fitness level are in order.