The Ride Hangover Is Real

Friday, September 5th

The ride was Saturday. It is now Friday. And I am still paying for it.

I went out for an easy trail run this morning. 2.27 miles, 412 feet of gain, nothing ambitious. About halfway through I broke into a cold sweat. Not the good kind, not the "I'm working hard" kind. The kind that tells you something is off. So I walked the rest. 28 minutes total, barely over 5 mph average. Not a workout. A check-in with how my body is doing, and the answer was: not great.

This is the part nobody talks about much when they think about doing a long event. The ride itself is the finish line in one sense, but your body does not know that. After 135 miles around the Bay, there is a debt to pay. The legs feel foreign. Sleep is weird. Motivation goes flat. I have done this enough times to recognize it: post-ride blues. It is real, it is temporary, and it is completely normal.

I felt it emotionally too, not just physically. There is something strange about spending months building toward a single day, and then the day arrives and then it is gone. The training, the logistics, the early mornings, the FTP tests, all of it aimed at one date: August 29th. And now it is September and the calendar is just... open.

The cold sweat mid-run was a useful reminder. The plan for this weekend is easy. Walks, maybe a very short ride if the legs ask for it. Nothing with a target. The body gets to be in charge for a few more days.

I am writing this because I want the training log to be honest all the way through. The build-up gets documented. The hard weeks get documented. The ride itself gets documented. And so does this: the Friday after, when a short trail run turned into a walk and that was the right call.

If you followed along this whole training cycle and wondered whether you could build to 135 miles yourself, this post is actually part of the answer. Not every session is a breakthrough. Some days you break into a cold sweat and walk it in. The key is that you go out, you pay attention, and you do not force it. That honesty with yourself is what gets you to the start line and then across the finish.

Easy weekend ahead. More soon.

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TheBayRide rides again on August 29th, 2026. If this training journal made the 135-mile ride feel like something a real person could build toward, that was the point. Registration is open at TheBayRide.com.

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