So many have asked me how my 80 mile ride of the past weekend went. The answer to that isn't even an answer. It's the absence of an answer... The reason there is no answer to the question is because the 80 mile ride didn't happen. The series of events leading up to the ride at 6 am ended up being disastrous, and in many ways the outcome of my morning was a blessing in disguise.
On Friday night I was invited to an Orioles game by a good friend of mine, who was looking to have a bachelor-party-like outing. Although I was going to be waking up at 5 am, who am I to tell a friend that I'm not going to go to something that's important to you, because I have to wake up early tomorrow... So I decided that I was going to just grin and bare it, I'll deal with exhaustion after the ride. After the game (around 10, 10:30ish), the group decided to go out for drinks. Being the great sport that I am, I said 'sounds great, I'll buy the first round'. We ended up getting home at around 12:30 am; Not the worst time in the world for a Friday night, but when considering the 5:00 am wake-up call, this was literally getting into the danger zone for sleep.
Let me explain a little bit about my sleep tendencies. I don't tend to sleep, I just do it. 8 hours plus each night, or else my life is less than ideal. 8+ hours gets me through the day in good condition. 6-8 hours and I live my life, but I'm in a tired state. 4-6 hours, and I don't function well -- I'm too tired to walk around and fulfill my duties as a human. Anything less than 4 hours, and I literally turn into a toddler. I don't listen to anybody, I have no attention span, I walk into stuff, I talk to myself... It's ugly. Less than 4 hours worth of sleep, and I may as well just not go to sleep at all. On Friday night (before 80 miles worth of biking) I went to sleep at around 1:30 or 1:45. We were deep inside the danger zone at 3:15 or 3:30 hours worth of sleep.
On Saturday morning I awoke (relative term under these circumstances) to my alarm at 5:00 am feeling worse than I've felt since college (not an exaggeration). I got up and went through all my routines -- Oatmeal, water, stretching, SportsCenter, etc. After all that I began prepping my bike. I started by pumping my tires... Which went along without a hitch, until the hitch. I broke the valve on my back tire, making riding an impossibility. "So why don't you just go buy a new inner tube, Dustin? Sounds like you didn't really want to go on this ride to begin with" would be what the doubting questioner inside my brain would say. The fact remained that it was 5:20 am on a Saturday morning, and nothing opened until 10:00. I was unfortunately (fortunately) going to have to pass on this week's ride.
Warning to anyone about to read this post -- This is a really long post that doesn't go anywhere, and has an ending that's totally not worth the build up. What? You already read it? Bummer, sorry about that.
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