Living with MCL

Last night I discovered I pissed off a friend with one of my recent posts. I won’t mention which post, but if you frequent this blog, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.

Be it known, that certainly wasn’t my intention. It’s just sometimes I’m compelled to express my feelings of frustration. It’s a big reason I continue with this blog. Let’s face it, I’m a pretty liberal guy, and when confronted with something that goes against my core beliefs, I vent. I could scream and yell (which I do on occasion), but this blog seems to be a more appropriate venue to do that, not only because it’s less confrontational, but I can usually get some support from at least a few people here.

But if it’s any consolation to my friend (who incidentally I don’t hold any animosity against because he doesn’t believe how I do) this morning was not a good one.

It started off by getting up late. So I was already in a rush when I decided to grease my left bicycle pedal (that’s the one I believe is causing the clicking I’ve been experiencing as of late again), and in the process accidentally got some grease on my nice clean riding shorts. This caused an ugly, obtrusive stain, which I only discovered after spending about 5 minutes looking for the little [tiny] screw I lost, which covers the grease hole in the pedal, and to no avail I might add. So after giving up looking for the little screw, I still had to change my shorts, which put me even further behind schedule than I already was for the start of the club ride.

I did manage to catch the group, but not without some extra effort.

Then to top it off, I got dropped by group 1 in the hammer zone. Normally that wouldn’t be such a big deal, but there was only one group today, a third of which were group 2 riders. There were some mitigating factors which I could use as an excuse, but it doesn’t make the feeling any less demoralizing. I should have been able to keep up.

So is that what some might call bad karma?

Who needs enemies!

As you can see by the photo to the right, it was a perfect day for a bike ride, and this is the kind of sympathy I get from a couple of my riding buddies, as I sit at home unable to ride my bike.

My only consolation is to try and rub it in to some of the less fortunate in the world, who are experiencing something less than ideal weather.

Don’t you wish you were here [there]? I know I sure do.

Although Sunday started out nice, the rest of the week did not fair as well.

On top of the seemingly relentless rain and cold, which only allowed me to get out on the road Wednesday of this week (Monday and Friday I did spinning classes), hassles at work due to unreasonable customer requirements, and a long time friend and tandem/triple riding partner passing away yesterday, I would not call this a particularly good week.

But even in the midst of a hurricane, if you so happen to be in the eye, there always seems to be that one glimmer of optimism to be found [even for the consummate contrarian/pessimist that I am]. And today was such a day.

If you’ve read my “Current Mood” plug-in on the right, you’ll note this day didn’t start out that good either, but after forcing myself out on the bike (something that often perks me up) things started to turn around.

First off, Rene and Amy (part of the old gang) were on the ride today. That doesn’t happen too often anymore, as Amy moved up north, and it’s hard to get Rene motivated, to ride 17 miles south, when she’s not around. But since Amy had a race tomorrow in LA, she made the 400 mile trip yesterday.

The ride was also relatively tame today (I guess no one wanted to push too hard since a lot of the guys were also racing tomorrow), enabling me to sit in with the first group. Something else that doesn’t happen too often anymore.

Afterwards, we headed off for coffee and tea, and talked about all the goings on, and even reminiscing about the “good ole days”.

All that would have been enough, but what really made the day was the view of the mountains as we rode home.

Although the picture from my bathroom window doesn’t do the view justice [I gotta start carrying a camera with me when I ride], it’s amazing for me when I think, while I live only 4 miles from the ocean, I can still look out my upstairs bathroom window, or walk about a mile to get an even more spectacular view, and see the snow covered mountains of Mount Baldy and Wilson.

I guess that’s just one more reason making living in southern California so great, and it did manage to cap off the end of an otherwise bad week on a good note.