I walked down the stairs in my house first thing in the morning as I always do, but this morning my calves were hurting. At first, I was puzzled but then remembered I’d done 32 sets of bleachers 24 hours earlier. That would surely explain it. Sore calves are no big deal and since my knee felt fine, I was okay with it. I knew the Jeep was ready for pick up and that I had a long bike ride in front of me, so I decided to get it out of the way and then do some resting.
Normally, I head out the driveway noting my time so I will know exactly how fast I’m going and can note where I am on a course against my pr times. On this day, I decided NOT to look so that I wouldn’t be pushing the whole way. It was my intention to have an ‘easy’ day, which you can do even when riding two hours. It’s all about intensity and I was dialing it back.
I rode comfortably around 16 mph and with a heart rate below 120 for many parts of the ride. It’s still intense going up hill with my heart rate reaching 160, but that can’t be avoided. I coasted and enjoyed the scenery instead of putting my head down and arms in the profile pads, a position from which I could achieve higher speeds…and view the road about 20 yards in front of me.
I arrived at Dan’s two hours later and helped him with a brake job he was doing…God help the owner of THAT vehicle. Actually, I was just depressing the brake pedal as he worked on the master cylinder, so I really couldn’t do any harm. At one point, I went into his refrigerator to get some cold water and was surprised at the amount of food he kept there, which was very little.
“If Jack were here, he’d eat everything in your frig in one sitting,” I said.
“That boy eats a lot,” he said.
I told him about our upcoming trip to the Adirondacks and Jack’s concerns about whether we could carry enough food in for him to survive the two days we’d be there. Since I can’t carry much, I may have to rent a pack mule when I arrive to carry his food stores. I have two pocket rocket propane stoves, but they’re small and utilize pots that don’t hold the two gallons of whatever he might need to satisfy his appetite. Well…I’ll give him a knife and a loincloth and let him forage, if it comes to that.
My nephew called to tell me the kayaks were ready for pick-up, so I swung by his shop and put them on top of the Jeep. I’d gotten in a good ride, had a Jeep fully functional, and two kayaks strapped to the roof of the Jeep with all systems ‘go’. Life is good.
Bike Duration: Two hours.
Training Heart Rate: 115 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1500.
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