wearing a clown suit, but no circus in town

For some reason, wearing my Bella kit riding around Madison by myself made me feel funny (pun intended)...like I'm wearing a clown suit, and everyone's looking at me weird because the circus isn't in town.

These past few weeks have been crazy. After having a relatively good race (for me, anyway) in Neenah a few weekends ago, I involuntarily took 1.5 weeks off from riding due to the combination of really shitty weather, being super busy at work, and taking an unplanned 4-day trip to IL for a funeral. After returning from IL late Monday night, I repacked my bags, and headed to Madison the next day for work. Did I mention that I broke a work laptop on the way down to IL? Yep, I completely cracked the monitor so that it looks a little like an Etch-a-Sketch...and it was a brand new computer. It's been a hell of a week.

Anyway, I think that's the longest I've gone without riding since I was on crutches in December.

So last night (Wed) was the first road ride I'd done since the Neenah Crit. Pellis had given me a few good routes to try, and the ride was awesome...and while it felt good to be out riding, my IT band issue was making my ride painful, which seems weird since I haven't ridden for so long. I figured it just needed to loosen up a bit, so I went for another 25-mile ride tonight (thanks to the "bike in the tree" route recommended by Ridge)...and it still hurts (please, no lecture Marjie!). And I'm supposed to do two races this weekend. Hopefully some stretching and ice will help, but I'm thinking I'll skip the road race on Saturday, especially since Barb referred to it as "Durand on steroids" - and I didn't like Durand.

Oh, and I also managed to somehow tweak my lower back (for the 100th time in my life) last weekend, so I've been walking around all week looking like I've got a corn cob stuck up my...well, you know where.

Madison is a cool place. And there are a ton of bike lanes. I was hoping to post a few stories from my rides, but I'm just too tired. And I need to get some sleep since we're going out on the town tomorrow night for Pellis' birthday...a hangover would be another good reason not to race Saturday morning, so I think I'll work on that tomorrow night too.

p.s. I just heard on the Madison news that May 25th is "take your brat to work day". Only in WI.

SS