In January of this year my computer died. Until I decide on which machine to replace it with, I'm using machines at our town library. January is the time of year when everyone catches the flu and begins hacking and coughing and I spend some days there in the midst of a cloud of influenza viruses. Not surprisingly, I ended up the same for about 10 days for which I was also off the bike. Just when I began to feel normal, It began to snow on and off so that roads were icy and or a dirty mess. The upshot is that I spent almost 8 weeks off the bike. Yesterday I rode 30 miles with the bike club and fitness very poor. Those 30 miles felt like 60 miles. On the theme of getting started again when off the bike for a bit of time, a 10 minutes rest is much, much better than being off for 10 days. I will now need to spend hard weeks getting back in shape.