A hilly grind

It was a tough day today. I spent four hours and thirty minutes in the saddle. My GPS was off; my theory is that there were too many people accessing GPS while at the Phoenix open golf tournament. My bike was off; even after cleaning all the grime from my gears last night, the gears were grinding and rough. My whole mojo was off; some days you just don’t feel it – today was one of those days.

I did lots of hills today starting by going north on Pima through Legend Trail up Stagecoach through a neighborhood to Cave Creek all the way up to the towers. I stopped for a minute to eat some nutrition and started going towards Bartlett lake. It was pretty steep downhill and I wasn’t feeling it; hence I simply turned around after just a bit more than 3 miles. Coming back uphill was another grind but it was only for 3 miles back up to the towers. From there, I raced downhill towards the Shell gas station on Tom Darlington where I stopped for my second nutrition stop. I rode south on Scottsdale to east Pinnacle Peak and south on Hayden only to find the road closed for the golf tournament traffic. I did another loop of Happy Valley and a couple of smaller hills to finish my ~65 miles.

When I ended the ride today, the back of my right knee hurt. It is a new kink for me. I could walk normally but it hurt to pivot left or right. I iced it for about 15 minutes and it seems back to normal. Weird!!

Tomorrow is the Superbowl. Denver is playing Seattle. I’m so not into football anymore. I tell all my friends that I have moved on to REAL sports. My big plan tomorrow is NOT to watch the Superbowl.