Mechanical

So Saturday was a brilliant day in Atlanta, and one of those days that made me glad I live relatively far south. I spent the early part of the morning on the phone with JoMarie registering for the Macon 1/2 Ironman in June (wahoooo!), the rest of the morning and afternoon cleaning and doing house stuff, and then by late afternoon it was a ripe 60+ degrees. Ready for my ride! John was home and I said, "I am not going to ride with my phone" (my "workout phone" is awol), gave him my route and time expected back, and headed out. At the last second I thought, better safe than sorry, and crammed my blackberry into the last ounces of space in my seat ditty bag along with the various accoutrement for fixing a flat, should one occur.

I parked under the GA 400 bridge so I could focus my ride on my workout route rather than dodging cars on Riverside and holding my breath the entire way. I headed out on Natchez (road bike for the few of you who don't know my bikes by name), and OW. Right away, I realized that my cavalier self-talk of "so what if I did a spin class Friday morning, my legs should be recovered enough today, so I can do my long run Sunday, when it's not going to be as nice" was total crap. (Running in rain and 40-50 degrees is a snap, riding, not as much fun). So I spent the first 20 minutes beginning to grumble to myself then going hey, it's just lactic acid getting pushed out and so what. This is making you stronger.

By the time I got back to Martin road, I got into a few of the hills and had about :45 under my saddle and was feeling good - even if I was having to go to my lowest (easiest) gear. After a few ups and downs, I came to the base of a decent sized hill, and clicked my right gears to the left, ostensibly to change gears on my rear dérailleur to make the climb easier. Instead of the familiar tight resistance and click of my shifter, it dangled like a flaccid, lifeless, and entirely useless appendage. Oh crap. Push push push push push, profanity, nothing. C'MON. Push push push push push. Nada. Beaten (and knowing the hill would beat my ass and potentially result in a reduction of speed to the point of toppling over) I pulled over and tinkered with my barrel adjusters to tighten up the cable. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Finally, tighter....to the point of COMPLETE lockdown of my drivetrain. Insert more profanity here. More attempts, more profanity, then final defeat. I called John, gave him my location and had to be rescued. Sadly, there wasn't even time for him to bring CC (Saber), as it was getting very cool very fast. So he and Tilley arrived and instead we scoped out the area for future runs and rides; I was pleased to note the remainder of the route I was traveling has some KILLER hills in both directions, which will be (eventually) fantastic for training. Also while I waited, I noticed around the lovelii lake, a run path! So maybe it was fate that I had to stop and smell the roses so to speak.

Moral of the story #1: Always carry a phone (I wasn't in Guam and could have knocked on someone's door, granted, but still).

Moral of the story #2: Ride early enough in the day that if your first workout gets cut in half, you have time for a Plan B.