Yep.
I was doing a very leisurely warm-up this morning, babying my creaky knees, in fifty-eight degrees and sunshine, when, about 5 miles out, with my knees feeling better, I started up a familiar .3 mile-long climb on Evergreen. But I noticed I wasn't cruising up the hill as easily or as fast as I had expected to -- and that's when it hit me. I hadn't pumped up my tires since last Saturday, or maybe even before.
Darn! I had been looking forward to timing the ten-mile stretch that comes after my warm-up, and comparing it to the time I had set Saturday. Now it seemed pointless. The numbers wouldn't mean anything.
Anyway, I had my rest stop at Safeway, drank a Muscle Milk, bought an 8-pack of GatorAde, stowed it in my pannier, and set off for the final ten miles. It was 8:13. I felt in great shape, but pedaling was hard. The soft tires, I figured. So that's okay, it's an even better workout. Like a batter warming up with two or three bats. Ten miles and 72 minutes later, I was home, and eagerly went to my desk to check the numbers from last Saturday. I found that I had done it in -- 72 minutes.
So, no improvement in my time. What would I have done on fully inflated tires? We'll see on this coming Saturday... or Sunday. Maybe this morning's workout will show some results.
I had some scrambled eggs and then got back on my bike, because I needed to get a book at the library: Publishing a Blog with Blogger. (Blogger is the software I'm using to create this blog.) I wanted to find out more about the "Comments" feature.
I was really lucky, because with over a dozen books on Blogger spread around the Washington County library branches, all but one were out, and that one was on the shelf at the Hillsboro branch, just 1.5 miles away.
So I went and got it, and now have made it easier for readers to post comments! Previously the default settings made it necessary for a reader to sign in in order to post a comment. Now that's no longer necessary. Now, when you click "post comment," the "select profile" drop-down still appears, but there are two additional items there: "anonymous," and "name/url". Neither one of these choices require you to sign in. I don't know what the "url" option is for, but you can just ignore it. Hope to hear from you!
