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Evening Doldrums?

BACK ISSUES, bicycling /

I seem to have evening doldrums. After supper, I too often crave sweets. For a minute I thought that a post-work ride would help, even if it\’s only a mile or two. Then I remembered that I get these evening doldrums when I worked away from home all day; and rode my bicycle home afterwards! So what\’s going on here? Do I need more than 1500-2000 calories per day? It seems unlikely, except for those Sundays when I ride upwards of 30 miles. Maybe I need to eat more earlier in the day. I think that would be easier if I could go back to working remotely full time. When I have to go in to work on-site; and don\’t get home from my morning ride until about 6:30; I don\’t have time for a large, leisurely breakfast. That\’s all the more true if I haven\’t prepared a breakfast the evening before. Am I trying to restrict the sweets too much? We all know that trying to be too \”good\” can backfire. It might help if I ate a little more candy than a Hershey Kiss® or two during the day. Being chilly much of the time is no help. I\’ve been far too under-active this week; and lack of physical activity makes appetite regulation harder. Let\’s see whether a ride to the salvage store tomorrow helps! Getting back to sweets, I\’m thankful that I don\’t have Diabetes Type I. The Athlete\’s Guide to Diabetes makes it plain that the practice of athletics with Type I is no easy task. There are too many details to list here, so I\’ll just say that it sounds like a veritable minefield. I\’ve got it easy compared to them.

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Lagging

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I feel like I\’m lagging in every way this week. We\’ve gotten our first cold weather. My place is poorly insulated (if at all!); and I don\’t have central climate control. I don\’t dare leave my electric heater going all night. I set it to turn on an hour before my alarm goes off; but it\’s still plenty cold in here when it comes time to get up. That makes it hard for me to get up and get moving. Being cold always has made me feel physically tired and sluggish; and it makes me mentally sluggish as well. I haven\’t done much riding as a result. The road bike is in the shop for a tune-up, and the hybrid feels very slow and heavy by comparison; especially when there\’s a strong wind blowing! Most of my morning rides this week haven\’t been much over five miles. I\’m lagging when it comes to my diet, too. I keep going off my plan, and eating too much of the high-carb stuff that I need to limit. Paradoxically, I suspect that the lack of physical activity is a factor here. I need more veggies; and cauliflower was the plan for this evening\’s supper. Instead I made Carb-Lite SamMac. It\’s been on my mind for a while; and now that I\’ve cooked it up, there are two less cans sitting around! And now I have to stop being the laggard and go clean up the kitchen!

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Dry Up!

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Dry Up! is what I often feel like screaming at my nose. It gets sniffly when the weather turns at all cool. Let me start a ride, and I can\’t keep up with it. Does every cyclist have this problem? We\’ve just had our first wintry (for us) weather of the season and, true to form, my nose acted up. Monday morning the wind was frightful, which didn\’t help matters. In fact, my morning ride was only a bit over two miles. It felt like I was barely making any headway during the first mile. If I had kept riding, and gotten the wind behind me, the headwind on the way back home would have been terrible! The temperature took a nosedive over Monday night, and getting myself up and moving yesterday morning was difficult. As a result, I got started late, and did only a short ride. The wind had died down, but was I cold! I wore heavy gloves, but not the heaviest pair that I own. Bad move! My fingers were freezing before I had ridden a mile and a half. I wore slacks over my leg warmers; but was concerned about the possibility of the leg warmers sliding down and bunching around my knees if I rode for a long time. Who needs that? Especially when fixing it means taking off the gloves. A long sleeved blouse + jersey + vest + windbreaker kept my chest pretty warm, but my arms were cold. And I wore my heavy skull cap this morning. Did all that layering help my nose to behave? No. Once again, I wanted to tell it, Oh, dry up!

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Do You Hear?

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Do you hear music as you ride? I\’ve noticed enough riders who have an iPod (or whatever) blaring away. Last Saturday, during my long ride, bits of music starting drifting through my head. It took a few minutes for me to remember that it was Homage March. I couldn\’t remember how the piece began, and had to find a YouTube to listen to! Do you hear birdsong along the way? That\’s one of the things I enjoy most about long rides; and if I have music playing during my rides, I probably won\’t hear the birds. It\’s worth it to keep alert for that; you might learn some surprising things. I sure was astonished to discover that bald eagles sing! Even without a radio going, I often don\’t notice other riders coming up from behind. A bicycle with time-trial wheels is often easier to hear, because those wheels cause a whirring sound; but of course not every bicycle is thus equipped. Mine isn\’t! I like to hear my own thoughts as I ride. On-bike conversation would be hard, because I still can\’t maintain a 12-14 mph clip and talk. At any rate, it doesn\’t feel like I could! I rather envy riders who can pedal and chatter away at the same time. What about weather sounds? Riding causes wind noise; and lightning has to be too close for comfort before I can hear the thunder. It isn\’t a comfortable situation. Last Saturday I was rather worried about that. The sky looked quite stormy, but I was lucky and got only a few drops. What do you like to hear as you ride? Keep your ears open; you never know what you might hear!

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One BIKE Open Sleigh?

BACK ISSUES, bicycling /

One BIKE Open Sleigh? A one bike open sleigh? I’m not sure whether I’d rather be the pedaler or the passenger! Now that it’s Christmas season, perhaps Santa would like to take that idea a step or eight farther; and have a sleigh pulled by eight cyclists instead of eight reindeer. Let me think about that one. How much training do eight cyclists need to be able to work together to pull a sleigh? Or, what about four tandems? Is that better than eight individual riders? The riders can live at home until time to get to the North Pole and hitch up; and after Santa has delivered all the toys and filled up all the stockings, they can go back home. Santa loves his reindeer, I’m sure; but let’s face it: don’t those reindeer have to be stabled; fed; groomed, etc. That’s a lot of work! Bicycles don’t need nearly as much care. The riders are able to provide for themselves; and these days not many of us must provide for eight people. Getting back to cyclists pulling that loaded sleigh: I guess they need a wide range of gears; and some have to be super-low gears. They have to get that sleigh up on the housetop, after all! If it snowed here, that one bike open sleigh would be great for my trips to the salvage store; or for rolling through the snow during my weekly long rides. Jingle Bells, anyone?

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Rain-Day

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It\’s rain-day today; not SUNday. I\’m glad I did my long ride yesterday! By 10 am it was raining quite hard; and if I had done the ride today, I would have had a long, wet slog to get back home. On top of that, the wind at 10 am was 13 mph — and from the East. Rain plus a headwind like that makes visibility a problem; and if the wind is gusty, bike control can be tricky. It\’s not fun reaching for a bottle on the down tube when the wind is shoving me around! I tried a new on-bike food yesterday: Supreme Protein Caramel Nut Chocolate bar. I found two of them in the grab-bag bins at the salvage store last Friday. The Supreme Protein bar is denser and heavier than most other ride foods that I\’ve tried. Than actually makes it a good choice for a long ride in the rain. It won\’t get soggy as fast as, say, Clif Bars. What can I do on a rainy day when I don\’t want to go outdoors? Of course I had to wash dishes. At times I wish I could use trenchers; after I eat my food, I eat the dishes! Today I needed to get my laundry done. I\’ve got my window unit on \”Fan\” to help it dry. I can watch YouTubes, or read. But no cooking projects today. My freezer is too full!

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Glad I Rode Today

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I\’m glad I rode today! A day or two ago the long-range forecast said that rain chances for today were 50%; and for tomorrow, 90%! I\’m not crazy about a flip-of-the-coin chance of rain; but it sure beats all-but-certain rain. So I set out this morning for my weekly long ride. Not two miles out, I tried to shift to the big ring; and the brifter wouldn\’t budge. I spent much of this ride on the small ring. I also spent a considerable amount of time uneasily ogling the sky! The clouds looked quite stormy, and I kept thinking about the 50% chance of rain. When I still had 14.5 miles to go, a few drops began to fall. Luckily it didn\’t get any worse; and I was happy to get home without getting soaked. Once home, I downed my recovery drink; and then I called the bike shop to ask how late they stayed open today. Until 3 pm, they said; so I walked that road bike over there. It\’s overdue for a tune-up; and besides, I\’ve got to find out why the front shifter is acting up. Maybe the cable is frayed and getting caught on something. Of course I had to leave the bicycle there. I\’m glad I have the hybrid to ride! I can still go to the store, ride to work, etc. The hourly forecast shows more rain and T-storms for the rest of today; tonight; and tomorrow; so I\’m glad I rode today!

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Post-Holiday

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Post-holiday, namely the day after Thanksgiving, has some folks thinking Black Friday. Not I! I can do without that madness; and with COVID-19 still running rampant, I don\’t want to be in crowds. Instead of hitting a big store, I hitched up the trailer and headed for the salvage store. First I rooted through the grab-bag bins, and filled a small bag (price: $3.00). I made some great finds! One was a large protein bar that still bore its original price sticker: $4.29. As I was able to fit 20 items into that grab bag, the savings on that one bar more than paid for the whole bag! ? I found a couple of Fit Crunch bars, too; and even an RXBar! I laid in another pile of canned beans: black beans, pintos, kidney beans. I keep buying more canned stuff while I\’m able to go out and about. All the reports about COVID-19 have me thinking, What if I have to self-quarantine? I\’d better be prepared! After I got my loot home and grabbed a snack, it was time for my latest culinary invention. Liltin\’ Limas has been on my mind for a long time, and having things nagging at my brain is tiresome. I figured I\’d better use up a few cans, too; all the more as I brought home a new load today! This post-holiday doesn\’t feel like Friday; it feels like Saturday. That\’s what going to the salvage store does to my brain! I decided to hit the store today so I can do my long ride tomorrow. Last night I checked the long-term forecast; and it looks like tomorrow will be better for cycling than Sunday. I\’ll take a 50% chance of rain over a 90% chance any day!

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Rampage

BACK ISSUES, bicycling /

Rampage A rampage is what my sweet tooth has been up to! Tuesday I fell off the wagon rather badly; and yesterday I went overboard BIG time with cookies and candy. I don’t know why this happens. Maybe I’m trying to be too stringent, and that can easily backfire. Possibly my body sensed the dropping barometric pressure — there was a severe T-storm warning during mid-afternoon — and reacted by craving sugar. I didn’t actually feel hungry; but I sure wanted to eat. Why didn’t that wait for today? It’s Thanksgiving, after all! This morning I went out on the hybrid to get a few groceries. The first store I went to is closed today; the second wasn’t open yet, and I didn’t want to stand around for 45 minutes. At the third store, I had better luck. Around 10 am I went out on the road bike. It’s warm enough for shorts today, but very humid; that’s no surprise after yesterday afternoon’s torrential downpour. Even at noon, it was still misty. I’m glad I didn’t have to ride at 5 am. But almost no wind at all! Hooray! Now I’m planning a rampage through the kitchen. That is, after I wash the dishes and pots that are already in the sink! I want to cook more stuff to freeze. What about Thanksgiving Dinner? No sweat. I opened a can of chicken white meat; and I mixed a can of pumpkin puree with sweetened condensed milk and some spices. Easy, crust-free pumpkin “pie”!

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In Clover!

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I\’m in clover! Or I was yesterday, at any rate. Yes, I found a four-leaf clover! Otherwise, I\’m not in clover. Nowhere near it. I\’m not poor, but I\’m definitely not well-off! If I were truly rich, would I ride the same old bicycle year after year? My road bike is over seven and a half years old; and I got the hybrid a year or more earlier. If money were no object, I don\’t think I\’d use a pair of cycling shoes for a year or more; and I\’m sure I wouldn\’t go about in sneakers that have holes worn in the uppers! Like Tevye, I sometimes wistfully think of how it would be if I were rich. But I wouldn\’t have a huge house, let alone one with a tin roof. I bet that would make indoor climate control a huge headache! I\’d want a house on the small side; but it would be great to have a big pantry, where I could store the big hauls of canned goods that I keep bringing home from the salvage store. I\’d love to have a kitchen with more counter space! A room just for setting up my trainer would be nice. Maybe I would even get up the courage to try rollers! The catch with having a larger place to live is this: it\’s too easy to fill up that space with more and more stuff! Then I feel as crowded as ever. As to a yard, I think I\’ll skip the poultry. I\’d rather be able to grow some of my own veggies! And learn home canning/freezing. If I were rich!

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