Cooked.

Yesterday morning I found time for a ride. Once I got going I couldn't get myself to stop. At the top of the second mountain pass some guys talked me into riding down the backside with them. That meant there would be two big climbs between me and home, though. On the way back up the hill I really started suffering, and I was nowhere near as capable of hiding it as the super-human athletes you see in the Tour de France. I ran out of food and water and I could hardly keep my bike going forward. Eventually I found a shady spot and laid down for a while. Farther up the slope I stuck my head under a waterfall.

I descended the mountain just fine, but then on the second climb my legs seized. It was so bad that I almost fell off my bike into the center of the road. Eventually I found myself sitting in the ditch, incapable of bending my legs. It wasn't merely that they hurt, but my brain was incapable of even sending a signal to my muscles to bend my knee. After five minutes I started walking my bike and a little later on I was able to start riding. I rolled down the last hill but there were a few short hills between the entrance to the canyon and my house. The last one is a steep bugger (17%), and as I approached it I knew I couldn't possibly make it up. I got off my bike and struggled to the top at a slow walk. I came into the house and collapsed. My wife took one look and said, "What in the world is wrong with you."

What happened is that I do way too much writing and way too little riding. My ting/ding ratio is seriously out of whack. You should see the insane striations in my left pinky finger, though.