Wow, it has been a long time since I rode a bike. The last recorded instance of me pedaling a bicycle was June 30, 2017. The time before that was December 3rd, 2016. Now, I know what you’re saying. “You’re not a real cyclist.” And, “You’re not a real triathlete.” I tend to agree with you. I am more of a pretend triathlete. As a matter of fact this whole summer passed and I didn’t even do one triathlon. Most of the summer I had the MR340 on my mind.

I also laid off running this year. I’ve ran relatively few miles since my last marathon in November 2016. In some ways I’m regretting it. It’s been tough getting back up to speed. When my easy pace was an 8:30 mile and now an 8:30 feels like a 10K pace it’s easy to doubt your strategy of taking a long break.

Do I even need to say swimming has been nil?

I said earlier I hadn’t been on a bike since June. Well, that was until today. I have picked up running again over the last two or three weeks and have been running six days a week. But today I just wasn’t feeling it and my knees were sore, so I set up the trainer and I rode for an hour. It was just an easy spin but I still ended up drenched in sweat as I’m ought to do when I ride in the garage.

Pictured above is my set up in the garage. I know, it looks pretty messy from that angle. I did just reorganize my peg board last weekend so cut me a little slack. I was watching a movie called Suspiria. It’s a 1977 horror movie. I got it because it’s an Italian move but it was all in English, so I’m not sure what’s going on there. I’ve watched quite a few Italian movies from my bike. Not recently of course, but last year I did. These include a number of Federico Fellini films. I’m sure there are some ‘normal’ Italian movies but I gravitate to the ones on the artsy-fartsy side. They’re usually pretty boring. You have to remind yourself that you are experiencing culture. Suspiria is pretty tame by today’s horror movie standards. I have a few minutes left so I’ll definitely have to get back on the trainer this week to see if our heroine survives the mysterious happenings at ballet school.

Just like while hitchhiking through the galaxy, whenever you ride the trainer you want to have a towel handy. That’s of course to soak up the copious amounts of sweat that pour off you. My towel is there on the handle bars. You may be tempted to ride topless but that is a mistake because then the sweat will have many more drip points and you don’t want all that salty brine dripping all over your bike.

With that thought I will say ciao. Or as Fellini would say with an abundance of wind noise and and some nudes painted silver in the background, good-bye.