“You don’t have water with you?”
“I’ll be fine!”

Joby and I had this exact conversation before the training ride on Saturday. I left my water bottle(s) at home accidently and thought to myself, “It is no big deal. The ride will take a couple of hours and probably wont be any harder than you are used to.” While the ride wasn’t grueling, I could have used some water here and there. The coup de grace was delivered when we took a wrong turn (or two) and ended up adding an extra 10 miles and a couple of hills to the ride.

We started at Sammamish Valley Cycles out in Redmond, rode down south to Carnation, looped back up through Union Hill (where the madness began), and ended up back at the shop. I ended up with a pounding headache and the lack of will to do anything else for the rest of the weekend. To be fair though, I probably would of had that anyways.

I keep talking about getting serious with my on bike eating habits but I haven’t actually done anything about it. Most of my rides are less than an hour and a half, so I’m not tempted to bring food with me. Thursday nights are so beer filled that it would be silly to bring even more calories for my love handles. I need to train my body to eat very healthy on a daily basis (like it is doing now), but be able to pack in the loads of calories that I burn while riding long distances. I will strike a balance, it is just going to take time.