I’m a little frustrated with the weather this week.

Well, I’m frustrated with a bunch of things, really, especially at work, as I work to navigate a process that isn’t a process in the current “official” job, and deal with system partners who won’t listen to truths they don’t like in the “old” job that I’m still doing because they haven’t figured out my replacement yet. Plus, you know, historic pandemic, political idiocy, friends losing beloved pets, waiting for my music distributor service to get the new tunes up on the streaming services, finding a jersey that fits, daylight savings’ time, and all kinds of other regular stuff we deal with here in the current era.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been shaking off some of that frustration by taking nice long, hard-pedaling bike rides after work. A lot. If you’re tracking my progress to the left on the VCT Winter Warrior Challenge, you’ll see I’ve put down nearly 200 miles in the last two weeks. I did twenty yesterday. It felt good, even though it was cold. I’ve started seeing wildlife on the trail. It helps calm me, and it burns about 1000 calories an hour, which is better than just sitting around watching netflix and drinking beer.

Of course, the weather forecast for pretty much the rest of the week is rain and unseasonably cold temperatures. I’m happy to layer and ride in 40° weather, though add a cold rain to that? Nah.

So, I’m going to miss that this week (maybe I’ll get a short ride in Wednesday after a doctor’s appointment if it isn’t pouring), and it’s eating into my time to finish the challenge before the end of the month. I’m not worried about not getting it – I’ve got 15 days to knock out 52 miles as I write this; that’s nothing; two or three solid trail rides – I’m not in danger of not finishing; I just don’t want to lose the momentum I’ve got going.

So yeah, it’s frustrating, even if it’s a total upper-middle-class first world problem. I need to vent somewhere, and I pay for this cloud space, so I’m totally within my rights to use it for this.

…and there’s always next week.