Some Days You’re The Lead Dog And Others You’re the Mutt

No offense to mutts, I have yet to meet a dog I didn’t like. My analogy refers to sports performance and my Friday Coffee Ride crew was kind to pull me along on what turned out to be an off day. 

Oh the day started off great with some wonderful news from the work side of my life. For a change! And I was pretty eager to get on the bike in the early morning (8AM out the door) to start off in 49 F temperatures. A bit nippy for Orange County, CA. 

Fortunately I knew it would warm up. Still I went out with several layers of clothing. Better to be a bit warm and need to strip a layer than suffer needlessly for the first hour to hour and a half. 

All good from the start. I was holding it together for about the first hour. Then despite popping a Gu at the 45 minute mark all of a sudden it felt like I was dragging a boat anchor. Legs became way to heavy despite trying to spin them at a fairly high, comfortable cadence and power level. 

So I went to the back to become the dreaded wheel sucker. Oh it’s one thing to sit in a pace line when you are pulling through. Another thing entirely when you say no, let me hang back here a bit. 

Did I mention our small group are a bunch of wonderful people? They let me hang back a while. 

Made a big difference. Was finally able to come through to take a nice, long pull at the front (lead mutt) bringing us to the much needed Starbucks coffee break. 

We won’t have a good day every day. The trick is to surround yourself with people who have your back, or will offer you a wheel, to pull or push you along until you are once again ready to excel. Take it as a learning opportunity. Analyze what conditions, events, actions, etc. got you to that point. And how did the support get you through it?

For me, it was not warming up enough before the bigger efforts hit. I know better. 🤦‍♂️ Got lazy and thought I could just kick in the afterburners without first making sure the jet engine was even running.