Maxing out at Mimi's.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

With the Jeep at Dan’s and Savannah driving the Honda to Columbus for the weekend, I found myself needing to ride the bike to Mimi’s for my Saturday workout in her yard. It’s only 20 minutes away and all downhill, but it would be a good warm-up for the day.

I arrived at 8 a.m. and after our obligatory coffee and small talk, began the task of weeding out a portion of her front yard around couple of trees that was supposed to be landscaped, but had gone wild over the past few years. She had three yards of mulch on the way, which I would be spreading when the weeks were gone. Some of the weeds included poison ivy, which she pulled with her gloves and cautioned me about for when I hauled it away…something I failed to do.

The mulch arrived and in a little over two hours, I had it moved and spread and looking good. It was a little after one and I looked at those two stumps I hadn’t been able to get out during the heat of the previous Saturday. It wasn’t nearly so hot now…and I went at it with mattock and shovel. I pulled the first one from the ground after 45 minutes of swinging, digging and cursing. It weighed about eighty pounds I’d guess as I wrestled it into the wheelbarrow. The final one was the blue whale of the group and took considerably more effort, but it too finally broke free and with the help of Mimi’s son, Tim, I maneuvered it into the wheelbarrow, as well. As I wheeled it into the woods, I noticed my quads were quivering and my upper body was just one big twitch. I…was…whipped…and I still had to ride the bike home…uphill. John was coming to meet me so we could go out to the Backpacker’s Store and try to find the Garmont shoes we wanted and I considered telling him to stop by and pick me and my bike up, but then asked myself “what would Lance do?” Well…he’d have hired someone to do the yard work and ridden all day…but in this particular situation…he’d ride. I hosed the mud from my body, sat down and had a Snapple Iced Tea and rested for 20 minutes…then boarded the bike for home.

It was uphill…and into the wind…and I took my time. I could hardly function by the time I reached home and when John arrived for our shopping trip, I felt like sleeping for the ride. Savannah called me from Columbus as we drove because the engine light for the Honda was coming on and she didn’t know what to do. I told her about oil and how it’s pretty important to an engine and how to lift the hood, check the dipstick and put some in. Though she’s been through this before, I could tell it was a foreign concept…and she’s an engineer.

The Backpacker’s Store had Garmont shoes…but not in sizes that would fit anyone who wasn’t a Smurf or Herman Munster. We were shopping through the clearance stuff when John noticed shoes…Garmont shoes. We both found what we were looking for in human sizes and when the clerk that had been helping us saw us there, commented that he’d forgotten there were shoes back here. “I’m thinking this store isn’t so big that I’d lose track of a quarter of it and that, if I was selling shoes, would forget where half of them were,” I said. Well…we got what we needed and for only $70.

That night, I turned in early. I had not done a traditional workout, but was more whipped than I’ve been from anything in a long time. Some days you just find the opportunity to burn calories while actually doing something constructive. What a concept.

Yard work duration: 5 hours. Bike workout: 50 minutes.
Training heart rate: 80 to 150 bpm for yard work. 130 biking.
Calories burned during workout: 2,500 for yard work. 700 biking.