A Futile Effort to Catch Up

So, I have clearly been remiss in my bloggerly duties, which are largely self-imposed based on my readership of one. Rather than try to recreate the last few weeks’ ride reports, let me summarize by saying I have been as lax in my riding as I have been in my blogging. Which is why I have not lost a single pound, and I now have to try a combination of riding and restricting calories (as opposed to just thinking, “well, that sounds healthy” or “I can eat what I want today because I burned 1000 calories riding”).

As much as I take anything associated with Lance Armstrong with a grain of salt, Chris Carmichael has clearly made a success of his training regimen. On the advice of T, I have started slowing my base mile rides (basically all of them) to keep my heart rate at 70% of my maximum heart rate. In my current out of shape, overweight state, this has me pootling along the trail at 12mph, but I don’t feel the effects much at al, which is of course the point. It also allows me to have more energy for those rides when I do expend more effort. Ah, science, where would we be without you?

Saturday, on a partnered ride, T actually hit one of the suicidal ground squirrels that pause when they notice oncoming bicycles and then promptly run across the bike path rather than running to safety away from the bike path. When we turned around to see if the squirrel was all right, it was thrashing in the middle of the bike path. I was wondering how one puts a dying squirrel out of its misery and imagined having to stomp on its head with my biking shoes. Luckily, the thrashing turned out to be the squirrel’s death throes, so all we had to do was drag it to the side of the path. As ground squirrel deaths go, that was pretty smooth compared to the horror stories I’ve been told about squirrels getting caught in front wheels and breaking the fork or stopping the front wheel and pitching off the rider. Naturally, T had to tell me the story about a friend of his who got a squirrel caught in his rear wheel. They had to pull the mauled squirrel out of the bike and finish it off with a river rock.

On a happier note, yesterday I went exploring the bike path on the south side of the river to see where it went. Turns out it only runs between H St and Watt Ave and has two really wicked hills at the Watt Ave access. On my way back to the Guy West Bridge, I made the acquaintance of a very friendly tuxedo kitty that jogged along with me for several yards until a bird or a squirrel distracted it.

The weather has not been cooperating with my brief spurts of good intentions to ride daily. No big deal to get motivated to ride this morning when it’s in the mid-60s and breezy. Very hard when it’s in the 50s, overcast and foggy. Earlier this week I had to dig out my shoe covers, balaclava, and long-fingered gloves. This would have to be one of the few years we have a real spring rather than a couple of weeks of nice weather then summer. At least the cool weather has meant I get to keep my unacceptably short hair hidden under my balaclava or a do-rag.