A week of biking adventures

Highest mileage so far this year!

This week: 

T :  21 (16.3 mph)

R : 16.3 (14.4 mph), 18.3 (15.8 mph)

F : 29.5 w/DR (16.3 mph)

Su : 23.2 (15.6 mph)

total miles : 108.5

Tuesday's ride started out well enough.  I was cruising along and feeling good. About 14 miles in, I came to an intersection.  The smart thing to do at this intersection is unclip before you get there.  But sometimes there is no traffic and I don't have to come to a complete stop, so I prefer to stay clipped in and make the turn.  The problem is, the trees are getting really full of leaves and it is hard to see if any traffic is coming until you get to the edge.  Which means I should definitely unclip in advance.  So of course I didn't.  And by the time I knew for sure that I needed to unclip, I was at a stand still, so the motion of trying to pull my foot out through me off balance and I had a very un-graceful, slow-motion, fall over.  (Yes, next time I will actually be smart and just unclip in advance).  My wrists absorbed most of the impact.  Both feet came unclipped when I bounced off the ground.  I picked myself up, got back on the bike, and continued on my way.  My wrists were hurting, but I kept as much weight off them as I could (which ideally I would be doing all the time anyway), and I made it home.  It wasn't until I got to the shower that I noticed the lovely bleeding chainring tattoo that I had on the back of my right leg.  And later that night my shoulder started hurting.  Apparently my wrists weren't the only part of me that absorbed the impact.  

battle scars

4 little bite marks running up my leg

I may or may not have told someone I got bit by a snake with 4 teeth...

I took Wednesday off because my shoulder hurt, and it was rainy, and I spent the afternoon at a joint birthday/celebration fiesta with some friends.  We were supposed to have a pool party, but of course it was the coldest day we've had in the last 3 weeks so we ended up mostly wearing sweatshirts instead.

Thursday I wanted to ride early in the afternoon, but I also wanted to go on the bike shop's shop ride in the evening, so I did a short ride early on, expecting another 20 or so miles with the shop ride.  I found out in mid afternoon that the shop ride wasn't happening.  That was disappointing, since if I had known earlier, I could have just made my earlier ride longer.  But I hadn't known...so I went for the second ride by myself.  The first ride involved a climb up Muddy Creek Mountain, which is a tough climb, and which I felt was overdue.  The second ride was easier.  

Friday I went for a long(er) ride with a med student I met earlier in the spring, who runs and bikes.  I had originally hoped to run with him, but I'm not running, and he has also been biking lately, so looks like maybe I will have a new biking buddy.  And maybe I will be able to get back into running in another week or two and maybe we can do both together.  Our ride started out well enough, the clouds were almost not raining on us, and we were cruising along a bit faster than my normal pace.  We were also talking, which meant I wasn't as focused on the road as I should be, so I hit a giant rock, and realized soon afterwards that I had my first flat tire.  By then, the rain was pouring down.  I held my bike, he changed my tire much quicker than I could have done it myself (at least I was prepared and had tire levers, a spare tube, and a pump), and we continued on our way.  After a long climb and descent, I glanced at my garmin and realized it wasn't recording.  Somehow I forgot to hit the start button.  Sad not to have the climb recorded, or any evidence of how fast we were going in the beginning, but oh well.  I missed recording the first 12+ miles, but I got the last 17+. The sun eventually came out and we had a great ride.  It was nice to have someone to ride with and talk to out there, and although my legs were hurting from trying to keep up on the hills, overall I felt really good.  My back didn't bother me at all.  

My lack of back pain on Friday made me tempted to do an even longer ride over the weekend, but thankfully I did manage to talk myself out of that.  Just because my back has been feeling great doesn't mean I couldn't easily overdo it and set myself way back.  I took Saturday off and made myself pick a 20-25 mile loop for today.  It was a loop with a couple of tough climbs, but at least it was shorter!  My back ended up hurting, probably because of all the climbing.  And also probably because I forgot to do my yoga stretches before the ride.  I'm pretty sure they are important for keeping my back in one piece.  

In other news, I haven't quite made a decision about my lung issues yet.  My asthma is not bothering me as long as I'm not running, and I'm not sure if I really want to go pay a pulmonologist right now.  My allergies are most definitely awful right now though.  Exercise makes them twice as bad.  I get home from each ride and sneeze up a storm.  And my eyes get so itchy after I get home, I end up trying to claw them out of my face.  I'm already taking Claritin in the morning and Singulair at night. (although I've really never felt that Singulair does anything at all...)  I've heard many times that eating local honey helps with allergies.  I've considered it before, but I loathe honey so much, I've always decided against it.  I decided that it was time to deal with it, so I went down to the local health-food store, sure that they would carry local honey.  Astonishingly, they do not.  But they had some Ohio honey, and swore to me it came from an area with the same allergy-inducing plants that we have here.  Plus, this honey is special for allergy sufferers and includes stuff like herbs and nettles and dandelions that are supposed to also help with allergies.  So I paid a ridiculous amount of money for a tiny jar of the stuff.  And have been suffering though a spoonful of nasty, sweet, crunchy, stuff once a day.  It better be helping...

this pretty much sums it up. every day.

I am in the middle of another attempt to actually take two full weeks off from running.  So hopefully I will manage to hold out and wait until Saturday to run again.  And then I can assess my stupid asthma and decide whether or not to make an appointment with the pulmonologist.