Entries in Life

In order to avoid joining the club of wimps (some people can rationalize anything), I went out today and yesterday, the two coldest days of the week, and did 30 miles.

Part of it is the 6000 mile goal I set for myself. If I slack now, I'll have to ride doubly hard later on. Part of it was that I skipped todays this week already. I had to get the miles in to make my weekly goal of 120miles. And I did! I made 130 miles for the week. Yay, me!

The other part is just the fun of telling people "Oh yeah, I rode 30 miles in the freezing cold." Something about the surprise that it generates makes it more fun. I won't have the opportunity to provoke such reactions in the summer.

But I think 30 miles is my limit. It takes me around 2 hours to ride that far and by the time I get back home, my toes are numb -- even after I put on extra socks.

(Today, I took my camera with me on my ride. 30miles at 30degrees. Click the photo for a couple more.)

After flirting with Google's Picasa for Linux for managing my photos, I'm back to using f-spot.

I like the timeline and that it doesn't ask me to give a single "folder" for all the pictures I'm importing, but, instead, creates a directory structure so that my photos are sorted by date. Interestingly enough, it is actually better than Picasa for importing. Picasa won't automatically rotate images when importing them from the camera where f-spot will.

I still use Picasa for uploading pictures to be printed out (F-spot doesn't support uploading to Wal-Mart), and I love the online Picasa's ability to help recognise and tag people in photographs -- 7000 faces in 10,000 photos are no fun to do by themselves, but when Google picks out the faces and suggests names, it becomes a little game to see how good it gets and to see which person Google thinks looks like each of my kids.

(Yeah, I'm probably helping them improve their facial recognition software and they'll end up selling that to the TSA, but ... oh well.)

Yesterday was a horrible day for riding. I thought of taking an hour at lunch on my beater bike, but I never managed to do more than think about it.

This morning, though, I was up and out of the house, biking down 272 towards Lancaster at 6:00 AM. I'm falling behind on my goal. Today I should be able to catch up some.

It's probably time for me to get some riding glasses. I can still see well enough, but I really should be wearing glasses when I ride. Things tend to be a little blurry and, at night, light from cars tends to starburst.

I'm making good progress on my goal, but then, it is only the first week. I need to average 120 miles a week, but that means I have to start now. And, unless I decide to take long lunches, that means riding in the dark.

Last night, I rode. I was halfway through with my ride when I felt light-headed -- like my blood sugar was low. I should have stopped and gotten something to eat but I kept on. (Note to self: this is very dangerous, don't do it again.) Last night, I spent some time scaring myself -- imagining that I had passed out coming down a hill with a car behind me.

As if that weren't enough, my front light got lost. I was trying to adjust it and the whole thing fell apart on the rode. Finding a light in the dark? Good luck!

Oh well, I know the road and I had enough presense of mind to watch oncoming traffic. My back light was flashing away, still, and I wear some reflective clothing so it wasn't as if I was completely invisible.

But the ride cost me a day. I am recovering from some sore muscles and thinking about riding without dizziness.

(Oh, and winter cycling clothes. Others have more experience, but a balaclava, some thermal underwear and that cycling jersey are great even into the 20s.)

It has been a while since I had any kind of injury from cycling.  Today I made up for some of that lost time.

Excited to have my bike back, I went out this morning for the first time to ride.  And I learned an important lesson: after you've been off it for a while, it is best to check your gear before expecting to ride like you were before.

It rained some last night and the roads were still wet.  On the first good downhill run, I tried to put on the brakes and they didn't respond the way I expected them to.  Down I went, sliding along the road for a good 10 feet.

Apart from a bruised and swollen leg and road rash on various parts of my body, I'm alive.  The same can't be said for my shorts which were shredded.  I took a few minutes to lay on the side of the road and recover a bit from the shock.  Then I limped back home.

I'm just disappointed that I won't be putting in any miles for a few days.