First day back on the bike

I hadn't been cycling for two months while preparing for board exams, and now that they finished I decided it was high time I got back into it.

I put my gear on, which fit a bit more awkwardly than before, and I jumped on and headed out. Little did I know how out of shape I was, nor did I realize the back brake was misaligned and rubbing against the wheel. I fought every single hill, and my heart rate was in the 180s for most of the time. Definitely doing a spot check before the next ride. My legs are quite sore right now, and I'm hoping that sleep will rejuvenate them because I have 4 hours of cycling planned tomorrow. I'm going to cycle by myself for two hours tomorrow at an athletic pace (an athletic pace for me, anyway) and then my non-cyclist Romanian friend is going to join me for the other two hours.

I saw a movie a while ago called "The Flying Scotsman" documenting the achievements of one Graeme Obree. According to the movie, Obree failed his first attempt at beating the world one-hour record for cycling but insisted he have another attempt at it the following day. Since he had rented the velodrome for the entire day, the committee could do nothing to prevent him from pursuing the record, but were very confused as to how someone could exhaust their one-hour muscular endurance twice in 24 hours and expect to beat a world record. The night before the second attempt, Graeme supposedly woke up every three hours during the night to drink a full glass of water. This was apparently supposed to keep his muscles from cramping up. I'm not going for the one-hour record tomorrow, but I just took down a significant amount of water, so I'm really hoping I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night to urinate.

I fixed the back brake. It appears that my friend isn't escaping tomorrow's outing. I'll take it easy on him. Maybe.