Holiday blues...

Well, I have to say this holiday is sucking big time for riding. Last Thursday was the last day I rode. It was to say a decently fast ride. My teammate Rayman unfortunately flatted again and caught up with us close to the end of the ride. Flatting sucks.
Friday was an off day and I was doing the things to get ready for the Christmas holiday celebrations. It was a good day off as I was again recovering from the night of celebrations again.
Friday and Saturday were spent with the in-laws celebrating an early Christmas as they had to depart for the actual celebration the grandparents. I can't really remember what I did these past several days as it was pretty much of a blur with parties and dinners celebrations. Oh yeah, my daughter had a birthday party at a skating rink which also got in the way of my riding. Then we had some friends over on Sunday. So....no riding the whole weekend. Monday, was of course Christmas eve and I had to run a few errands and make sure everything was ready for Christmas, wrapping and selecting presents for everyone. Christmas came and went as usual with a long day of opening presents and playing with the children and feasts. The day after Christmas, was again, filled with visits from my parents and celebration of my daughter's actual birthday. I had an open invitation to go out to ride with the noon riders, but of course I didn't go because of the commitment of being with my family. Luckily for me it rained...hehe. So the other riders bagged out as well.

Well, over this past week I caught a cold because of some snot nose kid running around in front of me and touching me, while I was watching my kids' hockey game last weekend. Geez... parents should get a clue that their kids are sick and keep them away from others. Control your kids!! They let them run wild and disturbed the hell out of many of us who were trying to enjoy our children's game. Now, I have this sinus and chest cold where I'm just hocking up greenish phlegm. I can't sleep at night because I'm coughing all of the time. I take tons of NyQuil, however, it typically doesn't work for long and sometimes it doesn't work quickly enough. The good thing is that I don't have a big headache nor do I have a bad sore throat. It came as a minor sore throat but that went away quickly. The chest congestion and cough are the worst and it's been about 3 days of that.
Tomorrow, I leave for the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, then to Park City, UT to do some skiing. Hopefully, my cold won't get worse with the flying I do. Unfortunately, my children also have this cold and are either on the same time schedule or a day later, so they are also suffering.
So far, this holiday has sucked for riding, I haven't received any cycling gifts, my heart rate monitor/speedometer broke, and I am sick.
I hope the next week is better. I won't be on a bike, however, skiing should be fun as I haven't been out West for sometime. The partying this year has been almost too much and my body is suffering with all of the alcohol consumption. Well, the good thing is that it is early in the season and I still have lots of time to train. The biggest challenge will be to get back on the bike and not hurt or be dropped by everyone. My previous winters have always been totally off of the bike and it's always hard getting back into shape in the spring.
So I look forward to the new year! Happy 2008 everyone!
Here's to a happy, healthy, prosperous and full of cycling 2008!