A Lost Weekend: Biking Vicariously Through Others

Moments before eating deadly walnuts. They were hidden in the chocolate inside the pouch. They assured me there were no nuts in the desserts.

I spent my first weekend off the bike in a long while and... well... I didn't like it. I had anticipated rain all weekend and therefore I didn't feel a bit bad about planning a rest weekend. After all, rest is 1/3 of the recipe for progress. I have been having a bit of an issue with my left leg anyway, so I didn't feel too bad about sitting the weekend out... until about 8:00am of Saturday morning.

Joe Freil points out in a recent post how important rest is to improve performance. The Zatopek Effect:

"In a similar manner, I’ve known of athletes in a variety of sports to develop a slight injury or become sick a few days or weeks before a competition and yet have a personal-best performance. They were forced to rest. I call this the “Zatopek effect.” Sometimes the body must say “enough” in order to regain form.

Rest is a miraculous cure for doing too much in training. Left to their own devices, athletes will almost always opt to put in more volume, go faster, and train longer. They are the ultimate believers in the Puritan work ethic. Seldom do they consider the need to allow the body to “catch up” with all of the stresses."

Saturday I had lunch plans and ended up going into anaphylactic shock at the restaurant after eating walnuts that were hidden in chocolate sauce. I bolted from the restaurant for my EpiPen and all was good, but I had a sore throat from the swelling. The restaurant staff never finished serving the meal and implied we were just trying to get a free meal, so they generously gave the rest of the party a 10% discount on my meal... about NT45 for nearly killing a customer with unlabeled tree nuts. They said they wouldn't do any more unless I went to the emergency room to prove I had an allergy attack. So the remainder of my Saturday was wasted on the couch feeling like crap from huge doses of antihistamine.

Sunday was another gorgeous day, but I had work to do and could only daydream about riding.

So seeing as I could not bike this weekend I did what anyone else in my position would do--bike vicariously through others.

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Let's see who was riding this weekend:

Michael T. contrasts two different rides and two different bikes in Ilan and Dajia.

Michael and Peichi C. did a lovely ride around Taipei.

Nathan does a Taipei ride too.

Team Mosaic went out to Dong Shih on the Highway 3 and around Da Du Shan.

Anyone else go out on another fantastic Taiwanese weekend?