During this morning‘s self-inspection roll call, my attitude showed up with the middle finger blazing, my stomach turned up upside down, and my legs didn‘t bother to turn up at all. Awesome. Can‘t wait, eh.

I rolled out, and it started raining. I definitely didn‘t need that, given my mood. The mental storm clouds rolled in, and I started thinking “I‘m def gonna flat today, or worse, crash, or both. And I’m probably gonna vom, too. This is gonna be the day.“ I went dark.

Thankfully, after about 45 minutes or so, my stomach settled down, which helped partially clear the mental skies too. The first section uphill along a stream helped too, as it was characteristically pretty:

It was about where I took this photo that I just gave up on my legs. I have a power meter on my bike and am well-attuned to my body, so I can quantify exactly how shitty the legs were today: about 20%. Everything felt 20% harder today. What‘s strange though, is that my legs aren‘t really sore, nor did they feel empty. 20% of my muscle fibers just decided to take the day off. Assholes.

After about 30km or so, I crossed a saddle…

…and then had a nice long, gradual descent through the following valley.

The rest of ride was okay. Scenic, with some cool vistas but no good photo opps, and nothing quite as picturesque as previous days. Which is funny…I wasn‘t in a great mood, and I didn‘t find the scenery as beautiful. Coincidence, or cause? Who knows. I‘m in Bregenz now, on the Lake of Constance, but even here the photo opps are no good. Tomorrow should offer better views , as I‘ll be riding around one side of the lake to the actual city of Konstanz, so you‘ll have to wait to see it until then.

The ride