Slept a ton last night and despite some weird blood drenched nightmares it was fairly restful. Some residual stomach upset but I hopped on the Sempre and blazed it up into work. I was a little tentative on the way in , not sure how sick I still was.

Ran out of oxycodone at work which upset the afternoon roaches. Man, this morning I filled about 1600 pills of oxy 30. It was just loco.

I was feeling ok when I got off work so I was a little more aggressive on my one 1 minute speed ups on the way home. Had to slow down here and there to avoid cars. There were people on the sidewalk by Westside park so I made like Michael McDonald and started taking it to the streets. I was flying up the hill on that narrow ass portion of 34th singing "You don't know me but I'm your Bro-other!" I was smoking it up to the 16th ave intersection and caught a green light and kept cranking.

Do you ever think about the lyrics to "Who Do You Love?" Of course everyone from the Doors, to George Thorogood to the Jesus and Mary Chain have covered it. It has some fairly intense lyrics for a 50's song. "Tombstone hand and a graveyard mind, just 22 and I don't mind dying." I read that walking 47 miles of barbwire is a reference to being in prison, an ice truck is slang for a hearse and "Who Do" is a play on words for hoodoo-folk magic. There are cobra snakes for neckties, chimneys made out of human skull, just nuts. Sometimes I think it would be awesome if an Eastern European guy covered it in broken English.

Blew off the Glider ride this morning (Wednesday) due to what I assume is a virus. Yesterday I felt really tired and my stomach was upset. I'm feeling better today. Man I've been sick 3 times in the past month. Riding home yesterday was a slow process due to my weakened state. I almost called V to come pick me up.

I used to never get sick. I wonder if I'm starting to catch stuff from our patients. Maybe I'll begin using hand sanitizer because this sick all the time shit sucks.

Monday morning the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse (me) set out to do the Millhopper Loop. It is a short course (13.4 miles).

The keys for me are to stay focused on putting out a consistently hard effort, attack all of the hills out of the saddle, keep the watts up on the down hill portions, not slacking off after a particularly hard portion, staying as low and aerodynamic as possible and absolutely killing the last 5 1/2 minutes. The last mile and a half I throw in about 5 mini sprints.

Anyway I buzzed in at 39:23 (20.3 mph) which set a new best time for me.

Rode downtown twice yesterday (Sunday). In the AM to 706 brunch and the PM to the Top. Glad that V seemed to be feeling better. I went to Bikes and More Sunday. They have repainted the exterior and it looks nice. That afternoon I put V's new air horn on her bike. I blasted it once and it is loud as H-E double hockey sticks.

After a long 4 weeks I was finally reunited like Peaches and Herb with the Cyclist on Fire for the Hawthorne trail ride. Coming out of the Hammock portion of the trail the CoF went nuts and started blazing it up. Here's a guy coming off an insane foot injury, riding a sick ass bike made for hauling monster stuff, not even clipped in just rocking the massive decks and he's smoking up hills >22mph.

So we spent the time catching up- talking about hypothetical philosophical arguments between Gary Numan and Bob Seger (relative merits of cars vs. old time rock n roll), Prince ("17 Days") and radiologists in Iron Maiden tribute bands.

When I came back home Virginia and I biked downtown to the Sun Center to have brunch at BFD. It's a new place owned by the Boca Fiesta people. It was pretty good and I was starving. I ordered a ton of food. Riding back was hot. I've been spraying the skin under my beard with this clear liquid sun screen. It smells like coconut and has this searing intense sensation when initially applied.

Later V and I rode back downtown to the Top for dinner. I had the Veggie Napoleon which was slices of fried tempeh stacked high with tons of veggies. Then we went to Karma Cream where a homeless guy wandered in and began having an incoherent conversation with the owner about needing to use the phone. What was confusing was he appeared to be holding a functioning cell phone in his hand.

Did the Racetrack loop this morning (Friday). On the way out of town I blitzed through the 441 intersection against a red light. Afterwards I heard an earful from some dude in a truck who didn't appreciate my taking liberties. It wasn't like I had cut it that close but it was mildly reckless and totally illegal so I accepted his unintelligible hollering.

I had decided to up the ante on my 5 minute periodic intervals of more intense riding and try to do them in 225 watts. The challenge is to try to maintain a good pace in between these harder bursts of riding. Anyway I made it on the first two. As I hit the Racetrack road (CR 225) I was getting gassed. The next interval was way of the mark and I was struggling. Still coming in to the home stretch down 53rd ave I was still on pace to beat my best time. I alternated out of the saddle high gear riffing with seated higher cadence bug outs.

Approaching 441 however karma bit me in the ass for my earlier transgression. I was hung up at the light for a minute and a half. Despite killing my momentum I managed to roll up to the finish point in decent time which was cool.

Looking forward to tomorrow's ride with the CoF!

Rode the Sempre to work Thursday. Did my usual 1 minute bursts of intense riding. I was blazing down Glenn Springs road at 27mph and I heard this voice say, "You better slow that bicycle down, boy." I have no idea what their main concern was with my speed. School is definitely not in session and there was zero traffic. The ride home was a little trickier. I had to stop short a couple of times while flying down the road due to lights and traffic.

The oxycodone roaches were out of control at work today. Calling every 10 minutes, crawling the walls.

In other news I've been relistening to a lot of my late 60's baroque psychedelic pop stuff like the Left Banke, Love, the Zombies and mid period Beatles.

Tough ride with the Gliders today. A lot of time up at the front. The last 15-20 minutes were the hardest I've ever biked. Towards the end Skeletor passed me. I heard this other dude exclaim, "Nice guy!." As in Skeletor had been drafting off me for miles and at the end takes advantage of his rested state to sprint by me. Honestly, it didn't really bother me though.

One thing was interesting that had never happened before. One time as I was dropping back from having been at the front this one dude signaled that I was to get back in the paceline in front of him. That usually means someone is tired is not in the paceline rotation. He actually reached out and gave me a push on the back with his hand. It did give me a momentary momentum boost.

Monday I set a personal mark for watts on the Millhopper loop. I didn't beat me best time though because of a head wind. Mainly, I'm just trying to improve a little month to month and not hurt myself.

Remember the cat that looked like it was dead on the sidewalk last week? I saw it again in its yard riding in to work Tuesday. It looked pretty cute. It appeared to be randomly digging a hole. The cool Tuesday morning weather felt good. Made me wonder how much the new beard will keep my face warm when I'm biking in the winter.

If ignorance is truly bliss, last evening (Saturday) I encountered some of the happiest people to ever walk the Earth. Biking home from work after 10PM a convertible with the top down pulled up next to me at a red light. When I tried to help them out by mentioning that their headlights were off they just stared blankly at me like they were witnessing a dog talk. Then they drove off sans headlights.

Don't get me started about a couple of dopes that came by the pharmacy. This one woman could not for the life of her comprehend the question of when she was planning on coming back to pick up her medicine. Later she didn't understand why her pills looked different from her old ones even though they were of a different strength. Next she wanted to pay for it by giving me someone else's credit card number over the phone. Would you go to the grocery store, arrive at the check out line and then pull out a piece of paper with a credit card number on it and expect that to fly?

Some kid came through the drive through on a moped at 9:59 PM. One minute before close. Gave me the wrong insurance card. Had no concept of how insurance works. He called his mom who thought there was some big computer system that could magically locate insurance information. Anyway that set me back leaving by 20 minutes.

The turnaround ride to work this morning (Sunday) was ok. I was tired but I caught all green lights. Met my new student Mun, an Asian man with a magical Fu Manchu beard/ mustache. My beard is at 3 1/2 weeks and now I just look like a dude with a beard, not a dude trying to grow a beard.

The ride home was slow. I pulled a Bob Seger and was riding against the wind. Plus I was hauling a bunch of Gatorade in my panniers for V. She was hospitalized on Thursday due to intractable vomiting from a stomach virus. She was released Friday and is gradually working her way back to solid food. Pedaling was tough, like my tires didn't have enough air. I stopped by Sweet Dreams to scope out their "Crazy Flavor Day". It was a mob scene. I picked up a menu. and drove pack later and bought 6 pints.

I did the Racetrack loop on Saturday. I came in under an 1 hour 30 minutes. It seemed like for several months I hit the dead spot where I couldn't improve my times. The last 3 months I've improved a notch and can consistently hit some pretty good times (for me).

Thursday was nuts. Virginia called me at work and needed to go to the hospital. She could not stop throwing up. I closed the pharmacy. jumped on the Sempre and made like Christopher Cross, riding like the wind back home.

Wednesday I rode with the Gliders. I spent more time at the front today- 21 minutes over all. Boss Hogg was unusually non-dominating. There is one steep hill that I got pretty gassed on. I made it to the top with a good effort but couldn't catch my breath afterward.

In the last 6 miles of the ride Boss Hogg and Skeletor manipulated the paceline so they didn't have to lead on the hills on Millhopper rode. That way they would be rested up for the final push. That seemed pretty bush league to me but whatever. I was right there a mile and a half from the finish but this side stitch I had been dealing with the past 5 minutes would be ignored no longer. I had to back off.

Later V and I rode downtown to the farmer's market, the Top and Karma Cream. Had a phenomenal watermelon mint popsicle from the Pop Stop stand. Also checked out the new food co-op on Main St. We passed on joining that for now.

Tuesday morning I made my way to work on the Cortina. I've quit doing the crazy high pedaling thing on Tuesday. I need to come up with something else like pedaling the whole way with just one leg or something. Anyway there was a black and white cat on it's back in the middle of the sidewalk on 34th st. This never happens. I rode closer and the cat didn't budge. I thought it might be dying but at the last minute it rolled over and looked at me. This was one mellow cat. As if to underscore that a mouse ran by a few seconds later. The cat didn't move a muscle. It was an odd scene.

I rode in listening to a bunch of different stuff Rolling Stones, New Order... Exile On Main Street is good background music for most things. I started thinking about one of our patients. This guy is 78 and he's a pretty cool dude. I've known him every since the store opened. He grew up during the depression, traveled the world, lots of stuff. He'd tell me stories and unlike most people I was actually interested and didn't immediately want him to shut up. Which as you know is rare for me. Anyway this guy is quickly losing his mind to Alzheimer's and it's breaking my heart. He'll forget a conversation we had five minutes earlier.

A pharmacist called out sick so I had to work a double. It wasn't very busy which was a relief. It also meant I didn't have to ride home in the afternoon heat. A minor consolation.

Rode the Millhopper loop this morning (Monday). Beat my best time by 1 second. My heart rate was way up there for the whole ride, 160's-170's. My max heart rate is around 183. If my heart rate is too close to my max for a couple of minutes I start to get short of breath and light headed. This was happening quite a bit on today's ride. That sensation holds me back from going faster. It's kind of like getting the wind knocked out of you. It's just a factor of being older. As we age, the max heart rate decreases and the heart cannot pump blood as fast. It kind of sucks, but that's life. At least I'm still able to do some exercise. I remember doing track work outs as a teenager and my heart rate would be routinely be well over 200.

Anyway I averaged over 20 mph which was cool. Cars turning out of side streets waited for me to pass. I gave them the friendly hand wave. Saw a deer hanging out on the side of the road. Still rocking the harder gear and trying to bump my cadence back up to 90. It's getting there.

Had good luck avoiding the rain riding Friday and Saturday. The Sempre was pretty mucked up from riding on wet road though. There was a bird slowly flying a few feet in front of me on the Hawthorne trail today. I almost could have reached out and touched its wings. Later my mind wandered and suddenly realized that I had drifted to the left on the trail path. Which would be fine except there was a dude heading towards me in the opposite direction. I swerved out of his way. It wasn't really that close but he exclaimed, "Damn!" I just make friends everywhere I go.

The ride started to get pretty boring after about 90 minutes. I don't know how people can stay motivated to do those 5 hour plus 100 mile rides. That just seems incredibly tedious. I miss riding with the Cyclist on Fire.

I did manage to set new personal records for watts on Friday and Saturday for 90 and 120 minutes.

Later I went to Bikes & More to return the old bike computer. Business was slow due to the rain. I am constantly amazed at how many people are working there at any given time.

In other news I have entered week 3 of the beard. The hair on my head is also pretty large. Last week at work a developmentally delayed woman in a wheelchair wearing a helmet rolled back to the pharmacy. She looked at me and said, "Your hairy!" and started laughing maniacally. I found this awesome picture of Vangelis (the Chariots of Fire dude) looking rather hirsute.

The cigar is a nice touch.

Then there is that guy with the giant afro from the band Boston.

I like how you can't tell where his hair ends. Physics tells us that afros abhor a vacuum and left unfettered will expand infinitely.

Rode my Sempre to work today (Thursday) to do my 1 minute interval commute work out. Four 1 minute bursts of faster riding to work and four on the way home. It is tricky to do this safely on 34th st. This was complicated by the rain on the way home.

The rain gave me an excuse to give the Sempre I much needed wipe down and chain lube afterwards. I have the replacement bike computer set up. Just need to test it out. Hopefully, I'll do that tomorrow, but insanely I strained a muscle from this massive sneeze this evening

Had a decidedly lackadaisical Glider ride today (Wednesday). I was still feeling fatigued from fighting a cold. Plus none of the usual pace pushers (Boss Hogg etc) were in attendance. The parakeet harrumphed at me a few times because I was weaving around a little and slowing down at times to avoid hitting the person in front of me. Since the ride finished up along 53rd ave I peeled off I mile early to arrive home sooner.

My court subpoena date was moved to today. I went to the courthouse and chilled in the witness room for over an hour. Finally it seemed like the court was recessing for the day. The bailiff came in and asked why I was in there. The plaintiff's attorney then came in and said I wasn't needed after all. The whole thing had been a waste of time.

When I retrieved my cell phone from the courthouse locker I discovered Keith from Bikes and More had left a message that my replacement bike computer had arrived. I went down to pick it up. All the B&M'ers were just standing in a giant huddle by the jerseys. It was a sight to behold. Paul has an impressive work force. I felt like they all should have been wearing gold blazers.

Anyway I am charging up the computer now. Hopefully this will fix the cadence bug. I still need to program it. With my lack of technical expertise I'll probably inadvertently set it up so it mistakenly initiates nuclear missile launch codes whenever I go on a ride.

I'm thinking the lawyers probably saw me with my new beard and realized that it was way too dangerous to allow me to take the stand. They'd ask me a question and I'd begin to thoughtfully stroke my facial hair while formulating a response. Then I'd have the jury under the thrall of beard power. If I had a pipe to go along with it I probably could have convinced them to give him the death penalty.

So it is day 12 of the beard. Apparently I haven't accomplished much yet except for managing to look like a creepy European fitness instructor named Raoule. "Eh, how you say, ... hello."

Biked the Millhopper loop this morning (Monday) before work. I've been fighting a mild cold for the past few days- sore throat, mucus, some fatigue. Somehow set a personal course record for watts (197) even though I was off my best time by about 45 seconds. It wasn't windy at all so I don't know why. I probably wasn't riding as aerodynamically as I should.

Saw a deer standing still in front of a subdivision for what seemed like forever. I used the harder gear (50:17) that I was in Friday. My longer range goal is to average 90 rpm in that gear for a whole ride.

There were some July 4 cycling club bikers heading out just as I was coming back in.

The beard is still coming along. I'm on day 10. They say to wait 4 weeks without shaving before trying to refine it. Not loving having to testify in court tomorrow.

Biked out around 6:30 Saturday morning to do the Hawthorne trail thinking about my temporarily sidelined comrade the Cyclist on Fire. The recent rain has resulted in a welcome increase in the water levels of the creek under the bridge. Wildlife spottings were limited to a lone disinterested deer. I made it out to the halfway point in good time. Probably a little faster than I intended. I looped around and headed back quickly realizing that I overdid it a little and I was going to be tired going back into town. The early start meant it wasn't warm yet and there were few people out. Exiting out onto Waldo road I saw these three people briskly walking in matching silver sweat jackets. The kind people get to lose weight because they don't realize that sweating and losing water weight is not the same as losing fat. I had seen the people before and I was annoyed with the stupidity and futility of their efforts. Oh well, at least they were out doing something and maybe they know something I don't. And silver is a pretty cool color regardless of the circumstances. Going down the big hill on Glenn Springs Rd by my house I managed to get over 36 mph which is the fastest I've ever ridden. Wrecking at that speed would be really bad. Made it back home by 9:15 AM which I won't lie was nice.

The day before was Friday which means I did the Racetrack loop. There was very little wind and I knew I had the opportunity for a special ride. I made an impromptu decision to ride in the next hardest gear than my usual. Of course I used other gears but that one was my "home base" for the ride. It seemed to be paying dividends even though my cadence was mostly in the 80's rather than 90's rpm range. I interspersed four 5 minute intervals of harder riding. As the ride went on I realized I had a shot at a personal course record. When I was able to sail through the intersection of 441 and 53rd ave on a green light I knew it was on. I was out of the saddle for much of the last mile and brought it home in 1:28:50. That shaves about 30 seconds off my previous mark. The average speed for the just under 30 mile ride was 19.8 mph. Afterwards I ate breakfast and fell asleep before having to go to work.

The previous Wednesday (6/29) I rode with the Gliders. Two people had flat tires during the ride which held things up. I haven't flatted recently but it is inevitable. I don't understand people that just do group rides. I can't overstate the difference between being in front doing all the work and being behind someone drafting. In the home stretch going east on a Millhopper road I was stuck in front pulling up the steep (for Gainesville) I-75 overpass hill. After my time in front was over I didn't have enough gas to stay reattached to the remaining group.

Except for Tuesday I drove to work every other day last week due to various circumstances. I have been subpoenaed to appear in court as part of a Walgreens lawsuit next Tuesday so I have to drive that day. Also I have to drive Monday because we have 9-5 holiday hours and I want to get in my morning Millhopper ride. Hopefully things will get back to normal after that.

Oh and I am growing a beard. It's been a week since I last shaved. It's coming in ok. Although one of my customers said I looked exactly like Howard Stern. Impossibly he actually thought this was a compliment. Another customer who is basically a homeless guy said my longer hair and nascent beard growth looked good. I'm not really looking for compliments but these are the types of endorsements I can do without. I'm sure a patient will come in today and say I look like a young Charles Manson. At this point if my head was a movie it would be Teen Wolf Too. I don't know what my endgame is. Just keep growing everything like a giant bush and then have it trimmed back into something mildly manageable I guess. At least the skin under the beard hair isn't irritated by my bike helmet strap.