As usual, I didn’t get much riding in during the recently concluded three-week Cirque du Frog. So I thought it would be swell to ride the New Santa Fe Trail to the Greenland trailhead and back yesterday.

I knew it would be hot, so I planned an early start, which I did not get. What I did get was a stiff headwind for all but a few of the 30 northbound miles, and that first 90 minutes was a bitch. The trail was in poor repair after July’s heavy rains, with ruts and sandpiles in abundance, and my legs felt like sacks of very old garbage.

Finding myself running behind what I considered decent time at two checkpoints — way behind — I thought about turning around at the North Gate to the Air Force Academy. Naw, why do something smart at this stage of your life? The Universe would become confused. Onward.

There are plenty of water stops along the way, at Baptist Road, in Monument, and in Palmer Lake, but I was a little light in the electrolytes department, and it caught up with me on the way back, when the temperature hit 96 degrees. I dragged ass back to Dog Central looking like Death eating a cracker. Seems 60 miles of sand on a cyclo-cross bike was about 10 too many in my present alarmingly decrepit condition.

I limped into the house, drank a tall glass of juice with a tablespoon of concentrated electrolytes, chased it with a couple glasses of ice-cold water, and then stretched out with my legs elevated, a cold washcloth across my forehead, meditating for a while upon the pure white light of stupidity. Then I ate a chicken-and-provolone sandwich with some salty blue corn chips and a banana and began feeling vaguely human once again.

The only half-smart thing I did on that ride was skip an extra-credit loop at the Greenland trailhead that would’ve put me even deeper into the pain cave on the way home. Maybe next time. Are we not men?