Go Hard or Go Get Breakfast

"The surf is nonexistent," said Frank, and I had to agree. With a day at the office on Saturday ahead, and a long day at Fordham on Sunday,  and not anywhere near enough time to exercise in the schedule I figured I try to get a good ride in before breakfast, before coffee and before a shower.

Not being a morning person, but more of a nightbird, I was not sure how that would fly with my body.

I set out to do a modest ride, but found myself attacking every hill in Sands Point, going down toward the water, and back up. And some others, that go up and then down.

Amazingly the body complied and kept up a reasonable 12.4 moving average even with the scads of steep hills that brought me down to a tortoise-like pace.

You'd have thought there would be plenty of opportunity to make up speed on the downslopes, but the there was plenty of tree debris on the ground for this time of year.

At one point I took a right corner too canted over ... "fc@k!" I hear myself yipe as the front wheel skipped out to the left as it popped and shot out an acorn like a bullet, nearly washing out in the process.

A little later, I took on Hilldales' steep descent — the kind of descent at my age you hope you have it in you to get back up. The speedy descent terminates at gravel path that fades into a chained of beach path. Nearly washed out again  -- there's no cornering on grapnel that large. I used MTB skills to come to a halt on the grass verge on the edge of the wetlands.

Fun ride. A real lung buster had triggered an EIA attack of coughing and wheezing for the next couple of hours. That's the price up upping the distance 40% instead of 10%, and definitely upping the intensity with a few PRs, and some uphill sprints that got the blood flowing.