Well that hurt a little.

Brady and I met up for a Labor day ride. After a quick cup of joe, we headed downtown then on to the Bellevue Blvd loop. We were hoping to save money by crossing the river at the South Omaha Bridge, but it is still under construction. So we rode through Bellevue with a destination of Glennwood, IA. After we made polite conversation with the bridge trolls(ok, that was mean, they were nice old ladies), we started to hit it hard on the highway in Iowa. We had a cross wind so we took turns on the front. Brady must have been feeling great because his pulls were always a little longer and a little faster than mine. His strength also became apparent on that climb toward Glennwood. I tried to keep pace, but I fell off a couple times. Then, either he'd sit up, or I'd recover a little only for me to pull through and go red-lining again. Not smart.

We crested the climb and maintained a quickish pace into Glennwood. I realized, at 1.5 hours into the ride, that I had only drank about half a bottle's worth of water. Oops. I didn't feel dehydrated. In fact, aside from running out of oomph on the climb, I was feeling pretty good. At the Glennwood convenient store stop, I downed a coke, a Nutrigrain bar, and some of Brady's Nut Roll then we were off. Word of warning to anyone doing the Glennwood loop; the road heading South West out of town is under construction. The bridge is gone, and the side road that we usually take to get to Pacific Junction, was heavily quartered off. Brady and I cyclocrossed our way around all the construction and were off again. I was all for taking it easy with the tailwind, but Brady was feeling his steel-cut oats apparently. We eventually got back to the Bellevue Bridge after some really hard work. We bipped over to the Keystone trail via 370 to 25th st. Another word of warning: they recently redid that bridge on 25th st which is good, but they completely blocked any sort direct path to the trail. So you have to stop, get off your bike, hop a guardrail, then get on the trail. I feel like emailing someone about this because it's horribly inconvenient to cyclists to have the route blocked, but more importantly it also takes away an entry point for emergency and maintenance vehicles onto the trail. Not cool.

Anyway, after the ride, I was feeling the effects of not hydrating properly. My legs started cramping up...BAD. I took a mini-nap and when I got up and walked down the stairs, I almost fell over. My muscles actually seemed to seize up. And this was even after drinking a tall glass of chocolate milk and eating cottage cheese and apple sauce. I guess since I hadn't really worked my legs in 4 days, they weren't ready for the hammer session. Oh well.

With regard to the cold I had, I'm questioning if it was a cold or some really bad allergies. On Friday, it felt like a real cold since I could barely wake up in the morning and slept most of the day after leaving work early. But now I'm sneezing a bunch and experiencing Bryan's symptoms of needing to blow my nose a bunch. So maybe I am growing into some allergies? I sure hope not, but it's entirely possible. I think I will lay off the intensity for a while anyway just to see if this stuff will go away.