Donating blood and riding

Yesterday I went up to church over my lunch hour and donated blood.  I'm not a big fan of the experience, although it is the only time I get to eat Nutter Butters all year.  My donation went pretty well, although the tech did almost lance me all the way through my vein so my flow as encumbered a bit until they pulled it out a touch.  Eventually, I filled up my bag, and got my Nutter Butters in with some apple pie, apple juice, and water.  I was a little nervous because I only had a plum for breakfast, so I wasn't sure if I was going to crash and burn after donating.  Fortunately, I felt fine, and all my vitals were pretty good for not being anywhere near race shape.

I left church, and went through the Whole Foods pizza bar where these soccer guys in front me of ate the rest of the BBQ chicken pizza.  I ended up with some greek pizza and a grilled veg pizza.  It was alright, and I got some smoked mozzarella pasta salad (delicious to the Nth) and some orza or something like that.

I went and finished up my day, and then went home and got ready to ride at Taco Tuesday.  TT is a fun group ride that leaves the Sandtrap bar and grill at around 133rd and Holmes.  We then ride Blue River Parkway (BuRP) and generally have a great time.  I decided to ride from home to the group ride, as I can ride trails almost the whole way there.  The trails I ride are in a fairly degraded shape, and at one point I couldn't even see the trail so I just started riding through the woods.

I met up with Travis from Bike Source at the official trail head and we got to B.S. for a bit while we waited for the main group to arrive.  He's a nice guy, and used to work at the Trek Store not too long ago and we talked about a mutual friend we have that has been going through some cancer stuff.  Neither one of us had talked to him in awhile, but the general feeling was that he was doing pretty good.

Anyway, the main group finally left the parking lot and we caught them coming on to the trail.  It took about 5 minutes before they were out of sight and I was sucking wind like a new Dyson.  I had 0 top end, and my legs felt like a 6-year old girls legs.  Albeit a bit hairier.  HA!  Yea, that was lame and wrong.  I was having a rough time, because mountain biking is both more fun and easier the faster you go.  Now, let me be the first to say I have no illusions of actually being fast.  But I can keep a decent pace from time to time and have grown accustomed to that.  It was like having a Corvette as a daily driver, then having to drive a Miata.  Sure, the Miata is still fun, but it's no 'vette.

I pulled my strava charts when I got home, and my average pulse was 176bpm.  That's pretty dang steep.  My last road ride avg was 142bpm.  No wonder MTB'ing is so fun.  I guess I just couldn't push enough O2 to my muscles with my diminished blood supply.  Speaking of muscles...

Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews on Vimeo.