And the Strangest Things Seem Suddenly Routine

Like last year, I did the 30 Days of Biking challenge in April. Unlike last year, I didn't lose momentum after April 30. To encourage myself to keep it up, I signed up for the Denver Century Ride--well, a quarter of it, anyway.

Before I moved to Denver, I was doing ~50-mile event rides a few times a year. They were challenging, but I was riding regularly enough and long enough distances that they weren't insurmountable challenges. Lately, my weekend rides have been ~5-12 miles, and as recently as last weekend I was having second thoughts about having signed up for a 25-mile event ride--y'know, where I have to ride with hundreds of other people at a reasonable pace while exhibiting basic group riding skills.

Yesterday I set out to ride 12-15 miles with a friend from work, and ended up doing 23. It kinda sucked! But that was mostly because of the brutal heat (91degF in direct, unmitigated sun), and because it had been so long that I had forgotten the important lessons I learned the first time around about longer rides. To wit:

• Eat a food you idiot
  
• You need more water than that
  
• Cycling gloves exist for a reason
  
• Just wear the shorter bike shorts already, no one cares about your fat knees

Of course once I was done, I felt great. And astonishingly, the only thing that hurts today is the sunburn and my head from the slight dehydration.

So now I know I can do it. I just need to spend the next couple weeks practicing doing it with the right fuel, hydration, and weather-appropriate gear so I don't want to die, and within a reasonable amount of time.

After that's under my belt, the next biking goal will be rebuilding some climbing endurance, because anywhere else I want to go from here involves riding at least partway up the side of a damn mountain.