January 30, 2024
R1: 儋州
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I would like to call today "W1" for either "work day" or "weather day" but, while I had that excuse in mind the third or fourth time I surfaced in the direction of semi-consciousness and decided "waking up is not for me," the only work I got done is something that wasn't even assigned to me until 4pm and it would be disingenuous to point that finger.
Judging by just how good the nearly two hour massage I had felt (and by "good" I mean the results rather than the whimpering that was going on during the massage), I would also like to blame a recurring "first few days of every tour" medical issue¹ on my choosing not to ride today, but, once again, although said medical situation is certainly a factor in my not riding, it wasn't in any way, shape, or form, the reason for my not riding.
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Simply put, I was knackered.
Even before you take the cold, drippy weather into consideration, my habit of not riding anything but urban share bikes between Tours (and rarely doing more than 10km a day on them), almost certainly means I would have been exhausted on the Tour Bike. As thoroughly documented by the smartwatch², the far more aggressive geometry of the bike I'm riding and the way this bike just wants to go fast where that bike wants to plod along means that I'm getting much more of a workout, and that means I'm more tired.
Once I finally woke up, I went in search of lunch while walking to the 1909 Nada Church for a video. Other than my seeing a Known Local Specialty that I've never tried and deciding that I didn't feel like trying it, my lunch was unmemorable.
Since my last visit to the church, it's gone from a municipally-listed Heritage Building to a provincially-listed one and access to the cool (and very dangerous) outbuildings round the back has been blocked off.
A flock of really annoying children who knew that they were being annoying kept hallooing me during my video-taking and, although a few of the older ones were polite enough to ask me if they could take a photo with the first foreigner they'd ever seen, the fact of them making no attempt to tell the other monkeys not to harass me gave me no inclination to agree. I was tetchy enough that mostly this just came out as a "no, I don't want to take a photo with you," rather than the actual lesson I wanted to impart, but I'm annoyed enough at myself over that failure that I'll hopefully remember to say the right thing in a similar future situation.
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Video done, I went looking for and found what turned out to be a really good massage, and that was basically my day.
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¹ For as long as I can remember, any time I've dramatically changed the number of kilometers ridden per day, I've gotten wounds on the outer edges of my girl bits. It's less extreme and more likely to heal faster if I ensure that I ride in dry, clean bike shorts; and take anti-yeast medication (even when I don't have an apparent yeast infection). This particular body part does not loan itself to the attachment of bandaids (though I've occasionally managed). Once healed, I'll have an almost keloid-like scar on either side. The scar lumps (but not the protection they offer) have usually gone away by the end of a long Tour. However, if I go more than a week or three without long days in the saddle, the wounds are likely come back on the first long riding day.
² Whereas last year's Tour (with a lot more luggage) had me consistently in the "light exercise" zone all day, I'm doing over half my riding hours as "heavy exercise" and up to 20% as "aerobic exercise".
³ And, since this is a low traffic road, it is now far older than any of the asphalt-paved roads.
Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 200 km (124 miles)
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