Yesterday marked day two of bike riding. Two in a row, that is. In days gone by, that would not be worth mentioning, but in my current state of slovenliness, it is. Excuses? I’m loaded with them. Jack has been home for the past two weeks and I’ve spent a lot of time either with him or accommodating his schedule so we could maximize family time. And then there was, and is, the heat. All too often I would find myself driving home from work too exhausted to do much more than drag myself to the shower to wash off the salt and sweat and then fall uselessly on the bed for a rejuvenating nap. The sun and heat have been acting to just suck the life right out of me. Finally and most importantly, I don’t have a goal right now. I need a date in the books to return to the Adirondacks, and now I have one. It’s mid-August, which is only three weeks away, and although I don’t know the exact weekend, mid-August is close enough to have gotten me back on the bike.
I pulled out of the driveway Sunday morning with a Kleifeld’s breakfast still settling in my stomach. Alaska Paul had joined me and described his new camping/traveling vehicle, which he plans to use to tour North America with bikes and skies. He is living his dream, no doubt. I got home knowing it would reach the middle nineties shortly and decided if I was going to ride, it was then. I was on the road by 9:30 and pedaled into Waite Hill wondering when, or if, I would hit a wall. As I climbed out of the valley an hour later, I found that wall. My legs were screaming from inactivity and the heat was taking a toll. I pushed through the final thirty minutes at less than race pace (a guy with a walker passed me as I went through the park) and reached my driveway in time to fall gently into the grass without dismounting.
Inactivity is a killer and one shouldn’t go through long periods of it and then ride thirty miles in oppressive heat…in case you didn’t know that already. I didn’t.
Monday…after a day of work in the heat and extreme humidity, I did it again. Same course, but better results. Though my legs hurt from climbing the day before, I felt better and stronger. It doesn’t take me long to ratchet up as there is some advantage, and muscle memory, to fifty years of bike riding. Let’s see how long I can keep this going…shall we?
Bike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 1250.
Bonus: 13,000 steps.
