Yesterday after walking two miles on the trail in the middle of the day, I jumped on my bike and tried to ride it home. I was snake bit from the start. The gist of the story is that I made some stupid decisions and ended up pushing it some of way but only after burning out a switch.
I was a little shaky this morning but it all went much better. Part of the reason is that I had tried to go from 'forced march' mind set to 'bike riding' with no chance to let my mind regroup.
For those of you who have never been on a forced march you might not recognize the feeling, but you might well understand it from your time in the gym or some such thing. When I was in the military back in the day, I had to make more than one forced march. Usually in the heat of the day and for a lot more than two miles. I was in much better physical condition back then. Nonetheless the same phenomenon happened.
My mind moved into a different place. It made me numb to most small pains. It wandered willy nilly from this thought to that, but it was and is always buried in a fog. My mind shuts out all the small details to concentrate on the task at hand. I can't explain it any better than that but I'm sure some of you probably can.
Anyway I went right from that mind set to the bike. It was a bad decision. Today I sat at the end of the walk for about five minutes. It made a world of difference. Also I walked early in the morning before the heat set in so my body wasn't as stressed as it was yesterday. I guess what I am saying is that it is easy to make some serious mistakes when you aren't all there. You know on an open bike that can be very dangerous, so for me at least I'm going to have to give my mental and physical state some thought before I take off on a bike.