Fresh Legs

"We had 18 hours to pump life 

back into those tired legs ..."

-- Chris Carmichael, 

"Make Tomorrow a Better Day," Bicycling.com

Drumsticks 10-8-14

"Overall, Lance's response was good:

his legs felt fresher and less sore the following day."

-- Chris Carmichael, 

"Hey Lance! Nice Socks." Bicycling.com

"And by saying good legs I mean untouchable, inexhaustible ...

It must be every cyclist's dream to have those magical good legs on such a day."

-- Gianni, "Having Good Legs," Velominati.com

I've been riding my bike a lot lately, and my legs are feeling tired and sore. 

So yesterday I did my legs a favor and treated them to a rest day.

I had a massage.

I took it easy.

I stayed off my bike.

I ate right.

For supper I cooked up some tasty drumsticks.

If it's really true that you are what you eat, then today my chicken legs should feel pretty damn fresh and delicious.

Too Much Of A Good Thing

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

-- Anais Nin

Freezer packed with ice bags 9-22-14

"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."

-- Mae West

"The bigger the better; in everything."

-- Freddie Mercury

In most facets of my life I feel like I don't do enough.

But when it comes to exercise, I am definitely guilty of overdoing it.

I go too far, too hard, too often.

To stave off injury and soreness, I take an ice bath every day after my ride. I dump two 7 pound bags of ice in the tub, fill it with enough cold water to cover my legs, and sit in it for 20 minutes.

I store the ice in the basement deep-freeze. It holds about 10 bags at a time (along with all of our frozen foods) which means I have to restock every 5 to 7 days.

When I'm on my game, I get my own ice. Sometimes, when I feel lazy, I can bribe Leo to do it. When I totally forget and it's an ice emergency, my husband is always great about making a last-minute ice run for me. Sometimes I don't even have to ask. He just does it.

Yesterday I was out of ice. I knew there wouldn't be any after my ride. 

Leo and his girlfriend were eating breakfast together, so I didn't want to make him do it. And I didn't want to interrupt my husband, who was working hard on a project of his own, and make him drop everything to go get ice. So after my ride, I opted for a hot bath with Epsom salt. 

It felt good. But it wasn't the same.

Later in the day, while I was out running errands, I dropped by the store and bought my ten bags. I felt good about being responsible for my own damn self, and for taking care of my own damn business.

I carried my ice-cold booty to the basement and opened the freezer.

It was already full.

Packed to the gills.

Ten big bags of ice, ice, baby. 

The Ice Man had already cometh.

So you know what I did? I called him on his phone (he was out scouting geese with Leo) and reamed him out. Ripped him a new one. I was all "Why didn't you tell me you bought ice? I have ten fucking bags and no where to put them. I hate it when you do this." I was super pissy because if I'd known there was ice I could have taken my ice bath after my riiide-uh!

And you know what he did? He apologized. For being nice. For helping me. For seeing a need and filling it. For being the kind of husband that almost every other wife wishes she'd married.

I huffily rearranged the contents of the upstairs and downstairs freezers as best I could and was able to cram in six bags. I dumped three bags into the bathtub, and put the last one in a cooler. Then I took the ice bath I'd missed earlier in the day.

Using three bags instead of my usual two made the bath extra icy and extra good, and it felt extra awesome.

I needed it to cool off my hot head and realize that I was a complete bitch to my husband who'd done nothing wrong except be a totally great guy. When he got home I apologized, and I thanked him.

And I realized, now that I have all this excess ice, I can take 3-bag ice baths for a few days to use it all up. I know it's a strange and unusual luxury, and not everyone's cup of tea.

But it's definitely my cup of tea.

Make that iced tea.

Going The Extra Miles

"I don't know what lies ahead, 

but I want to keep going forever."

-- Fuyumi Soryo

Bike tire, bottle and shoe 9-20-14

"A new challenge keeps the brain kicking and the heart ticking."

-- E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

"There are no traffic jams on the extra mile."

-- Zig Ziglar

There's a song I like that opens with the line "Drunk on a morning sky, it's the kind of day you want to wrap your arms around." 

Yesterday was that kind of day.

Ohio was shamelessly showing off just how gorgeous she can be.

The weather was perfect.

My legs felt good and strong.

The bike felt good and snappy.

I'd had an extra cup of coffee, so I had plenty of extra energy to burn.

So I pedaled and pedaled and pedaled some more.

And when I got to the end of my usual bike ride, I just kept pedaling. 

There was no compelling reason to stop, so I didn't.

I kept riding until I felt that good and useful kind of tired -- the purposeful, heady blend of exhaustion and euphoria that is the preferred drug of endurance athletes everywhere, that feeling that keeps us going extra mile after extra mile after extra mile, day after day after day. 

When my ride was done, I totally could have called it a day right then and there and been perfectly, completely happy.

I could have called it good.

Because it was.

A Doubleheader

"We've got the setting -- 

sunshine, fresh air, the team behind us.

So let's play two!"

-- Ernie Banks, 

National Baseball Hall of Fame induction speech, 1977

Baseballs in cycling and batting helmets 9-12-14

"I love doubleheaders. 

That way I get to keep my uniform on longer."

-- Tommy Lasorda

They say two heads are better than one.

I couldn't agree more.

Take yesterday, for instance.

The Indians were scheduled to play a doubleheader against the Twins to make up for their Wednesday night rain-out.

And I was out on my bicycle.

The first pitch of the first game was at noon, which is right in the middle of my daily ride.

But ...

Clever fan that I am, I tuned the game in on my iPod and pedaled happily along while I listened to Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus call the play by play.

The weather was still pretty dismal and gloomy, but inside my head it was all sunshine and summer. And, I had the best seat in the house.

I'm not usually much of a multi-tasker, but I had this one nailed, doing two of my favorite things at once.

After I got home and showered, the second game of the doubleheader came on, and I got to do it all over again. Except this time, instead of riding while I listened, I ate lunch, did some laundry, and made today's photograph celebrating the day's good turn of events.

In an even better turn of events, our boys swept the doubleheader, beating Minnesota in back-to-back games.

Go Tribe!

Blowin' In The Wind

"The wind shows us how close to the edge we are."

-- Joan Didion

Paper cocktail umbrella 9-11-14

"No one but Night, with tears on her dark face,

Watches beside me in this windy place."

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Night is My Sister"

"Everyone knows it's Windy."

-- The Association, "Windy"

I ride my bicycle primarily around farmland. Right now, the corn is high and the full fields provide lovely protection against the headwinds and cross-winds that typically whip and blow across the flat openness.

Except that now is the time of year when the farmer's start harvesting the crops. And as the combines gobble all of the corn and soybeans, they are also gobbling all of my good windbreaks.

The weather is particularly windy at the moment. Like, tornado watch windy.

Winds like these make it pretty tough sledding for a solo cyclist.

Unless that breeze is at my back, it's nothing but a bitch.

And so, while they still stand, I will appreciate and enjoy each day that the towering stands of corn line my route, like sentinel soldiers, watching out for me. Protecting me from the enemy.

Pretty soon the fields will be stripped shockingly bare and that cruel taskmaster, wind, will have its way, eventually driving me indoors until Spring comes 'round again.

Sometimes you don't know how good you've got it 'til it's gone.

A Thoughtful Gift

"Everyone has a gift for something,

even if it is the gift of being a good friend."

-- Marian Anderson

Bicycle with red blinking light 8-23-14

"May it be a light to you in dark places,

when all other lights go out."

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

My farmer friend Bob is one of the good guys.

I ride past him nearly every day, him in his truck, me on my bike.

Bob always sticks an arm out the window and waves to me.

Bob is a very friendly farmer.

Yesterday when he waved, he motioned for me to stop. 

So I looked both ways, did a U-turn and swung over to the his side of the road.

Bob had a gift for me -- a little clip-on, battery-operated blinking red light that flashes on and off, on and off, on and off.

He clipped it onto the back of the tool bag under my bike seat and switched it on.

"It's just a cheap-o," he said. "But it's better than nothin'."

He hugged me there on the roadside, even though I was all sweaty and gross, and sent me on my way.

Bob's gift might seem like a little thing -- just a small, inexpensive item from the hardware store. 

But it was a very thoughtful thing.

And now, I'll think of my thoughtful friend whenever I switch on my new blinky taillight.

It's always a good thing to know someone is looking out for you.

And I was touched that my friend thought enough of me to give me a thoughtful gift that will help protect me and keep me safe out on the road.

They say it's the thought that counts.

I say the friend who thought the thought counts even more.

The Kindness Of Strangers

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

-- Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

"A kind lady lives here" hobo sign, 8-3-14

"Today, give a stranger one of your smiles.

It might be the only sunshine he sees all day."

-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

On my bike ride yesterday I got caught in a pretty terrible storm.

Usually I keep riding through whatever Mother Nature flings at me. But yesterday, she flung me right off the road into someone's front yard. Another rider, a guy named Terry, saw me turn in and followed me.

The storm didn't look like it was going to give up anytime soon, and the two of us found meager, inadequate shelter under a big tree and cowered there together, dripping and shivering, while the hostile rain, hail, wind and lighting raged around us.

After a little while, someone appeared in the doorway of the little green house next door -- a young woman -- waving at us to come over.

This kind young lady invited us into her house bikes and all. A little girl, talkative and friendly as hell, bounced and skipped gaily towards us announcing "It's so nice to help people!" and handed us dry towels.

A tow-headed toddler watched warily from the next room.

The lovely, kind young lady and the adorable, bubbly little girl chatted with us until the storm finally eased up enough for Terry to get back on the road and my husband came to rescue me.

As it turned out, the kind lady's husband also rides, so she understood the plight of two stranded cyclists sidelined by a storm, and took compassion on us.

I was freezing by the time my husband arrived with his truck to drive me and my dripping bike home. My hands were numb. My feet were numb. But my heart was warmed by the kind gesture from a total stranger.

I don't like to stop riding if I don't absolutely have to.

I absolutely had to.

It's a good thing I stopped where I did.



*A note about today's picture:

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, out-of-work homeless men called hobos were a common sight jumping on and off freight trains and traveling on foot along America's railroad tracks. To communicate with others in "the brotherhood," hobos devised a clever set of symbols -- simple rudimentary icons drawn in chalk or coal on sidewalks or mailboxes, etc. -- to inform, help, warn, encourage and guide one another on their travels from town to town. This simple cat drawn outside a home indicated that "a kind lady lives here."

I Found My Mitten

"The three little kittens, they lost their mittens,

And they began to cry,

Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear,

That we have lost our mittens.

What! Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens!

Then you shall have no pie."

-- Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, 

"The Three Little Kittens, They Lost Their Mittens," 

New Nursery Songs For All Good Children (1843)

Self portrait 6-5-14

OK, so I'm not exactly a kitten, and I didn't exactly lose a mitten.

I lost a glove.

It was one of my cycling gloves from my favorite pair. They're the only gloves I have that fit my paws just exactly how I like them to fit.

When one of them went missing a couple of weeks ago, I was very, very sad.

Sad is bad.

I searched and searched for my little lost glove, but alas, I couldn't find it.

In the meantime, I wore other gloves -- gloves that don't fit my paws just exactly how I like them to fit.

When my wayward glove finally turned up in a drawer today, trapped inside a tangle of cycling tights and shorts and jackets, it made me very, very happy. 

Happy is good.

Also, I think now I get pie.

A Day Of Rest

"Rest and be thankful."

-- William Wordsworth

Self portrait 5-24-14

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day,

listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky,

is by no means a waste of time."

-- John Lubbock, The Use of Life

I took a day off yesterday, which almost never happens.

If it's good enough for God, I guess it's good enough for me.

By a "day off," I mean I didn't exercise/work out, which is a pretty big deal seeing as I get all twitchy and anxious at the merest mention of being grounded. But with my tendency to overdo it, my body's been paying the price.

When my first thought in the morning changes from "Yay! I get to take a bike ride!" to "Fuck, I have to take a bike ride," red flags go up. When I don't have enough energy to even walk up the stairs without my stiff and swollen legs burning with oxygen debt -- yep, more red flags.

Usually I have to force myself to take a day off, especially when it's a perfectly gorgeous day like it was yesterday. But gorgeous day or not, I simply didn't have the energy to do anything about it.

So I gave myself a -- gasp! -- recovery day.

Instead of hammering 3 hours into the wind, I hung upside down on my inversion machine to get the lactic acid moving out of my legs. I did some mild stretching. I sat in an ice bath, which felt blissfully refreshing. I wore compression tights under my jeans all day, and then even slept in them.

This morning my legs feel much better, but I'm still really wiped out.

So I think I'll do something really wackadoodle and take two days off. I know, it sounds crazy, but maybe I'm getting a little wiser in my old age.

Intellectually, conceptually, I know how important rest and recovery are. But in reality, I've always had a hard time doing it. I've always been a "bigger, better, faster, more" kind of athlete. Sometimes to my own detriment.

But maybe I'm turning a corner, or making a realization, or simply learning a little tiny bit about how to take better care of myself.

Better late than never, right?

Who knows? This could be the start of something good.

My Neon Yellow Cycling Jersey

"Think! Always wear a high visibility jacket."

--Top Gear, Episode 9.5

Self portrait 5-21-14

"The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up."

-- Marilyn Monroe

"It's no fun to be yellow. 

Maybe I'm not all yellow, I don't know.

I think maybe I"m just partly yellow and partly the type that

doesn't give much of a damn ..."

-- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Some road construction has shunted a bunch of traffic onto my cycling route.

I ride the same route every day, so the cars that pass me are used to seeing me, and for the most part they are all really good about giving me plenty of room.

But these new re-routed drivers seem not to know much about how to drive around a rider on a bicycle. Plus, they're driving pissed because there's a detour, also they're on unfamiliar roads and are probably staring at their phones or GPSs instead of the road ahead, so I'm not sure most of them even see me before they swerve dramatically, or sweep past dangerously close.

Also it's been raining a lot, and while I like my usual  all-black ninja-look (my friend Bob calls it my Spiderman Suit), I decided to up the safety factor and got a neon bright yellow jersey so that I can be properly seen.

I've never been a big fan of bright neon colors, in my workout gear or elsewhere. I prefer to blend in with a darker, more subtle approach. My mother often put a pair of hi-vis orange gloves or a hat in my Christmas stocking for me to wear running so I wouldn't get shot by the deer hunters. I never wore them. I also never got shot.

So anyway, I bought this bright, highlighter yellow jersey and have begun wearing it to combat this annoying new traffic situation.

Yesterday it was a good thing I was wearing it.

I was riding up behind some old fuck in a pickup truck who put on his right turn signal. He started to turn right, and then just as I entered the intersection he did a sudden U-turn and headed straight back at me. He hit the brakes. I hit the brakes. I yelled "What the fuck?" He honked -- what, to emphasize what a jackass he was?

Anyway, I escaped unscathed, and I credit my neon yellow cycling jersey for making me highly visible enough that I didn't get killed by an old fuck in a pickup truck.

Good. Fucking. Thing.

A Strong Tailwind

"For I would ride with you upon the wind ..."

-- W.B. Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire

Pinwheel  toy 4-27-14

"The wind envelops you with a certain purpose in mind ..."

-- Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing

"Air, I should explain, becomes wind when it is agitated."

-- Lucretious, On The Nature of Things

Cycling into a strong wind makes cycling feel a lot like hard work.

But thankfully, for every headwind there is an equal and opposite tailwind.

Turning the corner and riding a long stretch of smooth road with the wind at my back makes all the hard work worth it. This the part of the ride I live for -- the warm, gooey center. 

It's like dragging your sled up a huge snowy hill just so you can whiz down and feel the speed and freedom of fast. I'll gladly endure the burn in my legs and plow into a headwind or grapple with a crosswind for the sweet, exhilarating reward of being carried along by a strong tailwind. 

Headwind, bad.

Tailwind, good.

Riding My Two-Wheeler

"A good bicycle, well applied, will cure most ills this flesh is heir to."

-- Dr.  K.K. Doty

Fat tire two wheeler with wire basket 4-13-14

"A bicycle ride is a flight from sadness."

-- James E. Starrs

"Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia."

-- H.G. Wells

They say you never forget how to ride a bicycle.

I'd argue that you also never forget the very first time you did it.

I must have been 4 or 5 when my dad took the training wheels off my little red and white Schwinn, trotted along beside wobbly me until I found my balance, and then finally let me go.

And even though I can't remember my exact age when it happened, I will never forget how it felt the very first time I rode a two-wheeler.

I only made it past a couple of mailboxes down our dirt road before crash-landing in the ditch (Lesson #2, Using the coaster brakes), but I'd done it. I'd tasted smooth, unbridled freedom. It was the best feeling in the world. 

I wanted to do it again. And again. And again.

I couldn't get enough.

I still can't.

And even though I've traded my little red Schwinn for an expensive, multi-geared, high-tech, feather-light, narrow-tired road machine, and my scuffed up Stride Rite sneakers for clip-on cycling cleats, and my Toughskins for aerodynamic padded Lycra tights, the feeling I get riding a two-wheeler hasn't changed a bit. 

Smooth, unbridled freedom tastes the same no matter how old you are or how fancy your stuff is.

If you have a bike and you haven't ridden it in a long time, why don't you dust it off, clean it up, grease your chain, pump up your tires and get out there. A bike doesn't have to be high-tech or look super-cool to feel great. So what if the baby seat is still attached and your baby is in college? A baby seat is just the right size and shape for a bag of groceries or a couple of six packs. Just remember to strap them in. I know a lady who takes her two elderly Dachshunds for rides in the pull-behind Burley bike trailer she bought for her grandkids. I see them cruising all over town, and it's pretty damned adorable. 

Sometimes I like to just go cruising on my heavy old retro "Susie one-speed" with her fat tires, wide springy seat and basket on the front.  

Anyhoo ...

This is all by way of saying that yesterday, after many winter months on the indoor trainer, I finally got back on the road. (I still ride a red and white bike. I guess that hasn't changed either.) It was chilly. It was windy. It was glorious. It was the best feeling in the world.

I want to do it again. And again. And again.

And I will.

Whoever said "enough is enough" was obviously not a cyclist.

A Good Workout

"Wow, I really regret that workout."

-- No one ever

Wood mannequin 4-9-14

"I run to burn up what I don't need and ignite what I do."

-- Kristin Armstrong, 

Mile Markers: The 26.2 Most Important Reasons Why Women Run

"There will be a day when I can no longer do this.

That day is not today."

-- Unknown

I workout every morning. Every. Morning.

I used to be a runner, but an injury and chronic pain stole running from me.

Now I'm a swimmer and a cyclist. I can't swim right now because the surgical scar on my face is still healing and my goggles would fuck it up. Also, I'm still waiting for Old Man Winter to hit the bricks so I can get my bike back on the road. (My road bike is currently in the shop anyway because I wore out the chain and the sprockets riding on the indoor trainer -- wore them out!)

So for now, I'm stuck in the basement on my Sears stationary bike and NordicTrack skier. Sometimes I lift weights. I call it my "off season training" to make it more attractive.

It's mundane. It's boring. It's monotonous. I want nothing more than to be out there on the road gulping in the fresh air and sunshine.

But being confined to the "dungeon" doesn't mean I can't still get a good workout. I can make it work. The motivation part is a little tough right now, but once I get down there and get going, it's all good. I get the music playing and the blood pumping and the sweat flowing and it only takes a few minutes to start enjoying the familiar, heady feeling of exercising my body. 

Also, I am super-grateful that I have practically a whole gym-full of exercise equipment right in my very own basement. It makes it hard to make excuses.

And even if it's a little boring right now, it's till satisfying, because if I accomplish nothing else all day long, and no matter what else happens that day, and no matter how many ways I may let myself down, as long as I got my workout in, I never feel like a day is a total wash. I can say "at least I did that." It's my one most constant and reliable "good thing."

My exercise "dedication" borders on addiction. Probably it is an addiction. OK, it's an addiction. I know this because when I think about not exercising, I get twitchy, panicky. I get anxious and depressed and hopeless and afraid and bitchy and very, very sad. And often, the only thing that helps me cope when I'm panicky, twitchy, anxious, depressed, hopeless, afraid, bitchy or sad, is exercise. For me, there's nothing like a good hard workout to change my perspective and return the rosy glow to my outlook. Working out is my drug of choice. And yeah, OK, I admit, I probably abuse it and overindulge in it pretty regularly. (That chronic use injury didn't just happen all by itself. I gave it a  solid push with years and miles of hard pounding.) 

I'm now at an age where I have to barter with myself -- make trade-offs -- to make sure I don't exercise too much now and thereby jeopardize my chances of exercising 10 or 15 or 20 years from now. It's not easy, and am not always successful at this kind of discipline. I'll tell myself "Ride for an hour, maximum." But then I get out there and the wind is mild and the road is smooth and the perfect mix of songs is playing and I feel strong and extraordinarily happy and before I know it my water bottles are drained and four hours have disappeared and I'm still happily pedaling along, even if it hurts.

And I think, "Tomorrow, I'll do less." Or "Tomorrow, I'll take a day off."

But when tomorrow comes, I do it all over again.

Instead of doing less, I get regular acupuncture and massages to undo the damage.

I'm usually icing or heating something. I go through lots of Tiger Balm.

I only take a day off when absolutely forced to by circumstances beyond my control, and I hate it.

So yeah, I admit, I'm an addict.

They probably have meetings and 12-Step programs for people like me.

Doesn't matter. Even if they do, I wouldn't go.

Or if I did go, I'd most likely ride my bike there and back, just to sneak in a good workout.