It was my regularly scheduled Survival Workout day, but again the warmth and sunshine tugged at my mind as I drove home. How many more days like this could we realistically get before winter returned? I figured a few, but no one can predict Northeast Ohio weather…so I headed for my bike and another long ride.
Riding towards Gates Mills means going through the North Chagrin Reservation, but when I arrived at the park entrance, I found it blocked by a Ranger and the flashing lights on his car. I knew it was time for deer culling and so a Survival Workout would have been out of the question.
The culling program has been in place in the parks for a number of years and this year the Metropark has permits to take 588 deer. The deer are shot in open meadows, along the road, and other open areas so they can be taken safely and humanely and for easy and quick access to the field dressing teams. These teams are made up of Park employees and move in quickly for efficient processing of the meat, which is donated to the Cleveland Foodbank and other local hunger centers. To date, over 60,000 pounds of meat has been provided as a result of this coordinated effort.
I know this continues to be a controversial issue in communities around Northeast Ohio, but without natural predators, the only thing working to keep the deer population in check is starvation and our automobiles…both poor solutions to my way of thinking. I’ve come upon the carcasses of deer that have starved during difficult winters, so I support the culling program…even if it means I miss a day or two a year using my park.
I did my loop through Waite Hill but had to adapt since I couldn’t ride through the park towards the end as I would normally. I did stop to speak to a Ranger in a car blocking my normal entrance and she assured me that I could use the park tomorrow and apologized for the inconvenience. I finished the two-plus hour ride much more comfortably than I had the previous day, even though I was riding without tights, ear protection, or my booties. Though the pain in my neck and shoulders again made the final 30 minutes of the ride seem like three hours, I had none of the cramping in my quads that I would normally get from riding two long days in a row…another testament to the conditioning I’d received from the time on the trainer.
Later that evening, I made myself a large smoothie using fresh blueberries and pineapple to go with a dinner of scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions and fresh spinach mixed in. Very Paleo.
Bike Duration: 2 hour 10 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 120 bpm.Calories burned during workout: 1800.
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