From Couch Potato to Full-Time Cyclist

Welcome 2011 Riding Season!

2011-05-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here it is almost the end of May, and this year I haven't really ridden my bike at all. I gave it up long about October 2010, because the weather turned nasty and cold, and it honestly hasn't improved a lot since then.

Today, however, I got a comment from a new reader (hi, Charlotte!) and that made me re-read some of my old entries from last year. I had forgotten what enthusiasm I had, and how hard the challenges were when I first began biking, and what a wonderful feeling of accomplishment I got with each new milestone passed.

So now I am inspired to begin my 2011 Bike Training in earnest again. I still have not purchased a motor for my bike (though I still think that'd be an awfully smart idea) so I'll still have to tackle all these big hills on my own. It's on my to-do list, though. One of these days I'll get around to upgrading my bike, and then the hills will not kill me anymore and I'll have a much greater range of biking possibilities.

Though I haven't been biking, I HAVE been walking. I generally walk about three times a week, for about 20 minutes at a time. So that's been pretty gentle exersize. Just enough to warm up the system and remind my body that winter hibernation is over.

There's something discouraging about biking again, just because I know I won't pick up where I left off. I won't be able to just ride straight to the store without it being a struggle. So what I need to do is go back to those beginning entries from last year, and gauge myself by that. This year I'll see how long it'll take me to re-gain the condition I'd won last year, and try to earn it back faster. That will be my victory.

Yuba Mundo video contest

2010-10-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

Yuba Mundo Bicycles is having a video contest. I'm really looking forward to seeing the entries. I always enjoy watching clips of people enjoying their bikes, and especially the Yuba Mundo. I confess it does have a special place in my heart.

I love the way the Mundo rides so well, and still carries so much! I never cease to amaze myself when I pack an entire grocery cart's worth of shopping into the Go-Getter bags, and just ride home like it ain't no thang. Every single time, I keep thinking to myself that for heaven's sake I'm fat and middle-aged, and have never been any sort of athlete. For the bike to be so well-designed and built that a gal like me can do what I do on it, really a round of applause must go to this company and it's creators.

I wish I could enter the video contest myself.  However not only am I not photogenic, but I don't even own a video camera. I have made a couple of videos on YouTube (that had nothing to do with biking), but that was just with my little webcam and the quality rather sucked. Still, the idea is cool enough that someday I know I WILL make videos of myself on my Mundo, just because it would be great if I could inspire other people to try practical biking as well.    I would love to see biking continue to evolve into more and more of an everyday transportation solution, instead of being considered just a sport.

If I could make any video I wanted, what would it look like? Hmmm.... I'd want to show myself biking, of course, just to display that YES, YOU CAN BIKE even if you aren't a kid or an athlete, or built like a twig.   But since I wouldn't be the star of the video (the bike would) I would mostly try to get a better-looking model than me to ride/display it. I'd content myself with directing. :)

I would definitely want to show the mind-boggling capacity of the go-getter bags! I love showing off how much they can carry. I swear, most people simply wouldn't believe it if they didn't see it. I easily carry five gallons of milk, a sack of potatoes, and ten or fifteen bags of groceries, plus various little gear I always carry (personal stuff). Yes, thats ALL in one load!

Two problems I deal with constantly are hills, and the lack of local bike lanes. What I really want is to upgrade my Mundo to an Electric version, to get some power assist on those inclines. I bet THAT would be impressive, watching me bike with a full load up some of these hills! As it is I do make good progress on them, even unassisted (when I'm a bit more in shape).   One day I know I could do it on pure manual labor. But until I grow that strong I think it does make more sense to take the help that's available, and go for the motor-assist.

Riding along the major local streets is easy. There is enough paved shoulder on the roads that I feel very safe on the busiest streets. It's the side streets close to home that scare me, where the gravel (or rainwater runoff ditch) starts inches from the white line. Methinks that would NOT make the best advertisement to encourage anyone to start biking. But it is a reality, if you live practically anywhere but Copenhagen. And I do deal with it. And no, I've never felt like I was about to get run over. It's just a matter of status and courtesy. Obviously it's easy for car drivers to feel like I'm an interloper into "their" space when I start riding in car-width streets, due to lack of bicycle-width paths. But that's another video.

It would be cool if I could show some local children having fun getting joyrides two at a time on my bike's "rumble seat".   Maybe next year I'll be able to show that. And also to show how amazingly ATTRACTIVE the Yuba Mundo is! When folks see me riding it, everyone else suddenly pulls their bikes, trikes, scooters and roller blades out of the woodwork. Before you know it, we're having PARADES of me and everyone in the neighborhood just showing off what we've got, and all having a great time. Sometimes we've even had contests to count how many laps around the parking lot each of us could do. No prizes, just an enthusiastic cheering section formed by the ones who are resting while the apparently inexhaustible 9-year-olds just keep on circling.

I don't think I would ever do "Yuba Surfing" like they do in the Trembling Water video. That's just insane! VASTLY cool, but WHACKO insane! As a mother I cringe at the thought of the nasty spills a person could take while trying to stand on a moving Mundo. As a human being with a drop of wonder in my soul, though, I can't help being as fascinated by them as I would by those ladies in glittery suits atop feathered horses at the circus.

So that's that. Something to look forward to, as the video contest runs through October and is judged the first week of November. I can hardly wait to see the many lives a Mundo may have around this country (and maybe the world?).

On the Road Again

2010-10-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Finally made it out on a bike again today. The weather was beautiful and clear, and very cool but not cold. It was perfect weather to get started biking again after my hiatus.

I took my daughter's Raleigh, and did a hybrid commute on the bus. I had an appointment this morning at KMH, as I mentioned before. I figured the bike would get me to the bus stop faster, and also I could toodle around town a bit if I wanted, and not be stuck just with bus routes.

Turns out I had the right day and time, but the wrong week for my appointment. I'm supposed to see them NEXT Tuesday. (sigh)

Well, I took the opportunity to get some exersize in anyway. I biked home from KMH. It's about the same distance as Fred Meyer, and it is mostly in the downhill direction, so I figured it would be a good bit of fresh air and light exersize.

I am surprised at how really truly exhausting it was. Riding a light bike, with no luggage, often downhill on a clear cool day, and I STILL needed a good hour of resting in front of a fan before I began to feel normal again. It's sad how easy it is to lose whatever fitness I'd gained.

The good thing is that I also know how easy it is to gain fitness back, once you've lost it a bit. I know that as tough as today felt, if I go out again daily for the rest of this week, even for just a few gentle laps around the parking lot, my fitness will bounce back very close to where it was a few weeks ago.

My depression seems a lot less crushing for the past couple of days. I don't know what has made the switch. I've begun doing creative things again, like sewing and baking. I don't feel as high-strung and fragile as I did before.

I'm still going to keep my appointment at KMH next week. Obviously my emotions are still pretty volatile. Maybe I don't need medicine, and maybe I do. What I really want is just for things to smooth out. Where I am right now is okay, but I don't have strong faith that I'll STAY here. I want to be sure I have the support around me to keep me grounded and balanced.

Starting up bicycling again is a very positive step, though. I'm glad I was able to do that much.

Dealing with setbacks

2010-10-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

I guess it's going on a month now since the last time I posted to this blog. In those weeks I haven't really been riding my bike. I'm afraid I've been terribly depressed, and trying to cope with personal heartbreak which has brought on many sick days of migraine. Or just plain not feeling able to move.

Last time I posted that Johan and I broke up, he and I were still limping along in some kind of friendship, and hoping perhaps someday we might get back together. Since then, things have really dissolved between us. I still have trouble understanding how something that seemed so good could have evaporated like that. It still doesn't make sense to me, and I'm still hurting over it. We are no longer even speaking to each other, and I guess the current plan is that we never will again. It boggles my mind.

I guess it would be wrong of me to go into details here. This isn't supposed to be a blog about relationships, but about biking. But insofar as my biking has been affected by this relationship I did need to say something.    Losing a love has cast me into a depression, and that has affected my motivation to leave the house.

For the past few weeks friends have offered to take me shopping just about every time I would have had to muster up the gumption to go on my own. So there hasn't been a huge motivation to bike just because we needed groceries, as there has been other times.    I've accepted their help gratefully.   I've been sick and depressed, and with fall weather being as chancy as it has been I would have had a miserable time handling things alone.

I know that sooner or later I have to buck up my courage and get out there again. As Terry Pratchett once said, lately my courage has been several letters of the alphabet away from "bucked up".

The depression is not okay. Basic household chores aren't getting done. I don't even want to shower every day. I cry helplessly for hours sometimes. It is seriously interfering with my life. Therefore, I have made an appointment with Kitsap Mental Health this coming Tuesday to be evaluated for some kind of medication like Prozac or something, which might assist me in gathering my courage once again.

I need all the help I can get right now. I feel like my life, my zest, my enthusiasm has all basically abandoned me, and I can't find my way back to it. I know Johan is gone, and that is unfortunate. But my kids are still here, and they need me to be more on my game than this.   Even if I could feel just numb, but could FUNCTION, that would be something better than this.

In other news: I am happy to report that my Social Security Disability claim is now finalized. I have received my first month's check, and am rather thrilled that it is about twice as much as I used to receive on welfare. As it turns out, I am not receiving SSI though. I am receiving early retirement, drawing from the years I worked as a grocery checker (which was a union job).   Part of me feels very relieved at this. My disabilities are not necessarily visible, nor are they mostly physical, but they do add up to a very severe interference with my ability to hold a job. I did hold a job most of the years of my life until recently, even through difficulties like divorce and homelessness. But now the constellation of Asperger's Syndrome, depression, and severe chronic migraines along with other minor issues like PTSD or bipolar disorder or whatever other mental disorder labels I might carry are finally getting to be too much to fight. I'm extremely grateful that now at least I do not have to fear that my children and I will have to suffer homelessness ever again. I do not need to fear that I cannot provide the clothes and supplies that my kids need for school. I can plan to buy Christmas presents this year. I can plan to send my daughter to the prom, wearing a beautiful gown. We will never be rich, but at least we need not fear the severe poverty that we've lived through any more.

Part of my plans for our new prosperity include buying the right kind of bicycling clothes and all-weather wear. Such outfits are generally several hundred dollars each. To a family that normally buys secondhand clothing for a maximum of $7.00 per piece, that seemed completely out of reach before. Now I know I can afford them, if I budget correctly. I'm sure the right kind of padded shorts, rain pants, jerseys and jackets will make it a lot easier to protect us from excess moisture either from our bodies or from Mother Nature. The technology in those fabrics and construction is far beyond a simple pair of shorts and T-shirt.

Also, I'm planning to invest in a motorized version of the Yuba Mundo. I'm not sure if mine can be retrofitted with a motor, or if I'll need to buy a new motorized version, but we definitely plan to quit fighting the hills alone anymore.

So my two major biking obstacles are soon to be addressed: Weather, and Weakness. Hopefully, with better protection, and a little assistance, our biking journey will not fall by the wayside, but will continue to rise to new successes.

Day four - Biking in the rain

2010-09-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

This was an adventure. Today I got to do my bike run to the bank and Wal-Mart in the rain. I’m not kidding, it was actually fun.

I wore my new exercise suit, and a bit yellow poncho made of very light waterproof fabric. The temperature outside was about 66 degrees, and the rain was everywhere from a very light drizzle all the way up to quite steady rain that’s actually out to soak you, not just dampen your shoulders a bit.

When I got to the bank the first thing I did was I stripped off my jacket. Even in the rain, that simple lined windbreaker was too warm to wear after biking up and down hills.

When I got to Wal-Mart (same parking lot/area) I shopped for about five or ten minutes before realizing I was still just too hot. I wasn’t just damp from the rain, I was sweating bullets. So I stripped off my pants as well. Luckily I’d chosen to wear my spandex biking shorts underneath.

I was sad that I couldn’t strip off my shirt too. Though my shirt was a simple elbow-length scoop-necked cotton knit shirt that I thought would be breathable and comfortable, it seemed dreadfully thick and insulative in those circumstances. I’m going to have to always start building my biking layers up from a very skimpy camisole from now on. I hope the world won’t be too horrendously shocked.

Speaking of shocked, I felt self-conscious wearing spandex shorts around the store. I’ve heard the old saying that “spandex is a privilege, not a right”, and I'm pretty sure I'm out of both the age and weight categories they had in mind when they made that one up. My one comfort was that my whole outfit was black, so it didn’t look like I was really trying to draw attention to myself. I kept checking out of the corner of my eye to see if anyone was making faces at my behind. But no, I seemed to pass as totally uninteresting and not ridiculous at all. And this was even when I passed groups of teenage girls that I know would have laughed at ANYONE. So I feel pretty good about that. I’m not a freak after all.

On the way home the rain really came down. It spotted and steamed up my glasses, and made it hard to see. Cars were pretty considerate, more or less, and I’m very grateful because the roads were slick. I was glad I had such a bright yellow poncho to help me be visible.

The Yuba Mundo Go-Getter bags really did their job! They said they are weatherproof, and they are not kidding. Nothing inside the bags got even a little bit damp before getting home. I’m really happy with how well they worked. Stuff I tossed in my wicker basket up front got pretty well baptised, though. I think I want to come up with some mini-tarp I can strap over it. I’m sure I can fashion something out of an old tablecloth and some grommets and bungees.

Speaking of covers, actually I want to make a whole bike-cover as well. It would be nice to be able to leave the bike in the rain without worrying that the seat will be soaked, or other parts. Then again, maybe a shower cap would be good enough to keep just the seat dry. But if I should ever need to store my bike somewhere the rain might touch it, I’ll certainly want a waterproof cover to keep it from rusting. It’s a good long-term project to think about.

Day four was a success! Four down, twelve to go.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I biked very slowly today, and didn't even try to ride up the steepest hills. Aside from that walking, though, I really didn't need any extra rests. When I got home, I was very tired and sweaty and soaked, but not wiped out like before. I'm glad to see some of my stamina built back up so quickly. :D

Challenge day 2 and 3

2010-09-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

Tuesday I biked to the mailbox to get mail. I'm glad I installed that basket on the front of Amanda's Raleigh, because it made the job very simple and easy. Then I biked around the parking lot for just a couple of laps.   The big ride on Monday made me feel sore to sit on the bicycle saddle, and I didn't want to do much.

Today I biked one heavy garbage bag to the dumpster, using my bike because it is the only one capable of carrying more than four pounds. I've strapped a large wicker basket to the bread rack with zip ties, and it works well to hold a full wastebasket for a short trip like this.

If I believed in cheating in this challenge, today would have been a cheat, because I only biked up to the dumpster and coasted back home and called it good. Today it has been raining all day, and I'm depressed as hell, so I just didn't want to bother. Still, that's three days straight that I at least did leave the house, and pedalling action happened.

This blog is supposed to be about my growth as a cyclist, so I'll make this sidebar brief. Johan has decided to break up with me. My heart is severely broken over it, and I'm trying to put on a brave face, but it hurts so badly I cannot breathe sometimes. I'm oversleeping a lot, and eating more carbs than I should, because that's my standard way of dealing with being massively depressed.   Oh, and in case I forgot to keep everyone up to date on the timing of this whole thing, he is NOT visiting at this time. Just about the time I was expecting him to come for his second attempt to visit me was the time he decided he was done with this relationship and he wasn't coming. I'm really floored over it, because we didn't even have a fight or anything. He just woke up last Wednesday or so and decided he'd had enough of talking to me and being in love, so that was it. It took me this long to even begin to believe this is really happening.

So he wants to stay friends. Part of me wants to stay friends, because I still love him, and I can't help but think if maybe I keep the channels of communication open somehow this might all resolve itself someday. But part of me is simply crushed, because this isn't the first time I've been dumped like this, and I wonder if trying to stay friends with him is sheer masochism on my part.

I'll try not to talk about that any more, unless there's a major change. I wouldn't have said anything at this time, except in my joy at falling in love with him I did mention him here before, and I thought folks should not be left with the impression that things were still that way.

Tomorrow I will try to muster the gumption to make a real bike outing.   I need to do some banking, and my bank is right next to Wal-Mart, so that will be a decent run for me to make. That round-trip isn't too terribly strenuous, and I won't be carrying a cartload of groceries. I might even do it on my daughter's bike, which is so much lighter for non-cargo riding.

September biking challenge

2010-09-13T19:22:00.000-07:00

Once more to Fred Meyer and back with a cartload of groceries.

I skipped last week, because I was feeling depressed and very low-energy, and a friend gave me a ride.

This week I felt like I'd lost a lot of ground. The ride was much harder than last time. I had to rest many times. When I got home I had to let my son carry in all the groceries while I rested with a fan to stop me from overheating, even though it wasn't a hot day today. Overall today's ride was just TOUGH.

So I've decided to up my fitness. Every day for the rest of this month I will ride my bike. Maybe not as far as the store, but I'm not going to just sit around and NOT ride for weeks at a time. I need to do more to maintain the fitness I am working so hard to achieve.

On days when I feel pretty strong, I will make the round-trip past Wal-Mart, whether or not I need to stop in to buy something. It's just a good long round trip to bike, with plenty of challenging and fun hills. On days when I feel like absolute crud, I will at least bike once around the apartments, just to say I did put my butt in the saddle and rode a few minutes, and didn't break my record.

This week the other thing I accomplished was finding more appropriate biking apparel. Not the highest-tech stuff, but at least I do now have some good long spandex shorts, and a lined windproof suit which will probably also be drizzle-resistant. These new clothes will help me layer on the warmth when fall weather starts making me want to skip days. If I have to get wet a little, no biggie. I can get dry again.

It would be nice if I could bike all the way through winter, and all the way through the next year... but I know it's smarter to start with a smaller goal I actually have a hope of achieving. Biking for the next 17 days straight is totally within my reach. I'll let you know how I feel about pushing it into October when the time comes. Also, October 1 should be a good time to review whether I've upped my stamina and fitness, or perhaps shrunk a little into my smaller-sized jeans by then.

progress report

2010-09-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

My goodness, I guess it has been a long time since I've blogged. So much has happened.

Johan's planned trip did not happen as we hoped. His luggage was stolen on the train to the airport, along with his passport and many valuables. It was devastating.   Obviously the trip could not continue at that time.

The good news is that he is a very resilient man, and has replaced just about everything that was taken, and is planning again to visit me, hopefully by this time next week. So we now have that to look forward to. I'm so intensely glad that this setback didn't stop us from being able to see each other after all! It's so good to be loved this way, to know he'd go through so much trouble to be with me.

My heart melts for this man.

The bad news is that this loss has been rather difficult on us both. We had a fight over something trivial, and didn't talk for days. We've both been battling depression and illness since then. It's wonderful that the fight is over and we are back to our normal loving selves, but it would be nice if the depression and physical symptoms could please lift, thank you. Even with these added burdens, though, he and I have both been doing everything possible to make the second trip happen smoothly.

His responsibilities are obvious, in needing to replace so many important things. My heart goes out to him still for so much lost. My responsibilities are perhaps not so noble. They involve doing things I should have been doing all along. Like cleaning my bedroom.

Here's the thing: I'm a slob. I've never been one to keep a tidy and efficient house. Clutter drifts into piles in room corners, and around favorite chairs, and on most flat surfaces. Fighting this entropy can seem daunting to a naturally messy person like me. But with Johan coming, I've got to make an effort. I can't have him stepping into my home for the first time and shouting "I've made a mistake!" and running back home to Belgium. So I'm working very hard to get things into a better state.

Before his last visit due date I tried cleaning my room. My daughter helped by cleaning the master bath and removing about a dozen boxes of junk from my room that had been lying around randomly. (We stashed them in my son's room. We'll deal with that later.) That was about as far as I got, besides making the bed. I thought I was doing pretty much okay.

When Johan arrives, though, one of the fun bonding experiences we've planned is to build a platform bed together. My current bed is a twin size. (Obviously not good enough for changing needs.) So to prepare for this expansion, I rearranged things, to test out where the new larger bed could go.

In moving things around, I suddenly was made aware of drifts of clutter I had somehow overlooked before. It's amazing how things filter in, and pack together, and layer like sediment at the bottom of a pond. There was so much stuff. I'm rather shocked that I honestly did not notice it before. Anyway, I've spent the past ten days or so working slowly to clean it all up.

It's like trying to empty out a lake with a bucket. (Or it feels that way, anyhow.)

Fighting my depression, fighting the entropy, fighting the guilt and my natural laziness and messy tendencies, I have continued to make progress bit by bit, day by day. Generally I've found anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours at a time that I could make progress. I'm never able to do more than about 10-15 minutes of work at once, though, before I feel like I've seriously got to go lie down.

It isn't the physical strain. There's no heavy lifting or anything. (And I'm strong enough to deal with it even if there were.) It's the DECISION-MAKING.   Argh!   It wears out my brain. Having to look at ten thousand little piddly things and decide what it is, what to do with it, where it goes, how to get it there, clean the darned thing (because it's probably covered in dust and crud), and finally execute all those decisions is sheer torture for me. It has been slow going.

But I'm very happy to say that in the last week I've managed to get more than half my room fully cleaned, including all the dresser drawers, under the bed, and washing the windows even down to the grimy tracks. I've hung new curtains, and washed all my bedding. I've vacuumed the floor, and scrubbed the wall where a bit of mildew had begun to grow behind something. My room has a freshness I haven't seen in a long time. All that's left is to sort through my closet and get rid of everything that doesn't belong there now.

I'm feeling an intense sense of freedom and lightness. Even through my depression I feel a joy. Sounds contradictory, I know, but it's true. I feel as if shackles are falling off my hands. I'm finding the strength to throw away lots of stuff I thought was valuable because I could find a use for it "some day". I'm planning to get rid of a lot of things I no longer really need or use. I'm recognizing that it isn't my responsibility to be the one to find the use for every scrap of craft ribbon, or all the back issues of my favorite magazine, or a candlestick collection which I don't even want to display.

Today I'm planning a "free garage sale". I'm no good at selling stuff. The other thing I would have done with it all is keep it, throw it away, or give it to goodwill. It occurred to me that many people at my apartment complex might find some of my treasures worthwhile. After all, I thought they were worthwhile until recently! So I'm gonna set up a folding table in the back yard, and just leave out everything I don't need, and let people take what they want. Anything left over can still be thrown away. This way I don't have to plan much, and I don't have to worry about theft or pricing or safety with money. Just bless the neighborhood! I feel good about that.

Other than all that, though, I have no biking progress to report whatsoever. I've been busy. I'll try to get back into biking after Johan gets here.   That will be fun.

Edit:
P.S. My double kickstand did arrive Monday, and I had it installed! It works like a charm, and I am thrilled with it.

Losing my bike

2010-08-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

Ah, I should have posted earlier. My excuse is that I'm expecting Johan to come for a visit in less than three days, and I can hardly think of anything else! (Is it weird for a couple's first date to be a three-week sleepover? Too bad. One does not fly from Brussels to Seattle just for a cup of coffee.)

So blog update: I left you hanging last time. I will continue to leave you hanging a few more minutes while I tell what wondrous feats I've performed this week.

In my last blog post I forgot to mention that yes, I did bike that day. I did the Wal-Mart round-trip on the Raleigh, once again without stopping. I am getting good at it. When I got home that day I was not only successful, but I was so much stronger than the time before! The first time, I baaaaaaaaarely made it, and felt like dying afterwards. This last time I made it and was tired, but not exhausted afterwards. I'm definitely growing.

Two days ago I made another major grocery run to Fred Meyer. The distance is longer, and instead of riding my daughter's light Raleigh I must take the Yuba, because that's the only way to carry a full load of groceries. The load I brought home that day was slightly larger than the first load of groceries I blogged about getting a few weeks ago. I weighed it at 127lbs of eggs, milk, meat, and produce, and I am very proud and blessed to have gotten it all home. Incidentally, I did also purchase a wire basket which I have now attached to the bread rack with zip-ties, to have a place to toss minor stuff without needing the go-getters. During this trip I needed to rest once on the way to Fred Meyer, and twice on the way home while pushing it up Safeway Hill. But that is a great improvement over the previous run, which required twice as many rests. Also, after arriving home once again I was pleased to notice that though I was very tired, I was not feeling like I could black out from exhaustion. Simply sitting and resting had me feeling recovered within an hour, compared to my first run like that which required 20 minutes in a cold shower, followed by an hour in a cold bath, just to normalize my temperature and make me feel like I could live again.

So my growth, even with sporadic exercise, is certainly continuing and I am extremely pleased and proud of my progress.

Last post I signed off with the thought that I really want to lose my bike. That is thanks to something Johan said to me. My Yuba Mundo weighs 80 pounds, standard. In my case, I also have all the accessories like the hold-ons, the go-getter bags, the bread rack, and the running boards. All together, my bike probably weighs 90-100 pounds. This just happens to be almost exactly the amount of excess fat which I need to lose off of my body. In a sense, I am a fit and muscular 160 pound woman riding a tricked-out Yuba Mundo with another Yuba Mundo on my back! Which is obviously pure insanity.

So my thought is that I want to lose the bike off my back, and spare the strength it took to carry it in my muscles, so that I can add that much more cargo into the loads that I haul. Once I make it down to 160 pounds, being lean, strong, and fit, I will be able to make it up and down hills as if they were flatlands. I will be able to carry any load I could ever wish to move. I will perhaps not be a size zero, but instead I will be a powerful Amazon of a woman, and that is my vision for how I want my body to look and perform.

Visions of Goddesses I Shall Soon Resemble:

Jed Dougherty "Guardian Angel"

Another Jed Dougherty, whose title I do not know.

I don't need to be this thin, but I do want to keep very strong muscles.

incidentally wonderful

2010-08-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

For any of you that may wonder if I'm only posting highlights of all my exercise and leaving out the boring daily laps and stuff -- no. I'm pretty much posting every single time I go out on my bike. Every time I do, I feel so incredibly proud and I'm so surprised that I can do it that I always write about it here. So all the progress you've seen me make has been based on exactly how many posts you've read about up until now.

Sometimes days and days may go by when I do not ride. Sometimes that's due to migraines. Sometimes it may have to do with weather. Sometimes I'm quite busy with errands and stuff to do and places to go all day. In the end though, I always know that the very honest truth is...riding is something I either choose to do, or do not choose to do. Nobody is going to spank me for not riding my bike. Nobody is going to give me a cookie if I do. Riding is something I have to decide for myself is WORTH it.

(Hmmm... looking back at that last paragraph I wonder if it reveals a tad too much about my childhood? Oh, well. Too late now.)

What makes riding "worth it" to me?

The first reason was economy. I couldn't afford a car, so I needed another option to take best advantage of the limited funds I had for transportation.

Second was health. I needed some activity which would be aerobic, strengthening, free, not require much expensive gear or clothing, and which would be engaging enough to want to continue long-term. I wanted an activity that would be gentle on my joints, and that I could do well into old age. I wanted something that could change my life, not just be a fad or a class I would get sick of or burn out on.

Third was fun. Through the mists of time I dimly remembered that riding a bike as a kid had been the most fun I ever had! (FWIW, as an adult I'm finding it is every bit as much fun still.)

Finally for me is the question of utility. I just can't stand to think of wasting all kinds of energy doing something for no reason. Going for a jog? Well you'd better be running away from a bear, was my thinking. It just seemed so pointless to spend all those calories just to spend calories, when the whole purpose of calories in the first place is to give us energy to accomplish work. I wanted something that would help move my life forward in some significant way. I wanted something that would help me accomplish some other important task besides itself (or also besides any incidental benefit of fitness).

Yeah, incidental fitness. That's what I wanted. I wanted to LIVE MY LIFE, but to do it in such a way that fitness became an incidental byproduct, rather than the main goal I chased like a carrot on a stick.

Well, it's working for me.

Having a practical goal like getting the milk is a massive motivator. Yes I could take the bus or sometimes get a ride from a friend, but the bicycle gives me a vastly greater dimension of control. I LIKE control. I like knowing that I am in charge of my own life, and am not forced to live at the convenience of others. I like knowing I can handle my own challenges on my own terms. So when I decide it's time to buy milk, I just hop onto my bike and an hour later we have milk. That may seem slow to folks used to cars, but it is fast compared to waiting for a bus or waiting for a friend to be available.

Along the way I have all these wonderful side benefits that keep me happy, and willing to do it over and over again. I can see my body changing. Since I've started biking I have started fitting back into clothes that I had begun to be too fat to wear. So I know I'm shrinking. My endurance has gone up. My weight has come down at least six pounds. That may not seem like much, but remember that I am not at all dieting, and I'm VERY sure that the weight I've lost is all fat and not muscle or mere water. Stack up six pounds of butter next time you're at the store and tell me that isn't significant!

I am also having fun. Coasting down McWilliams hill is one of the most joyous experiences I can remember having in my entire life. Especially since as I coast down, I have the searing pride of knowing I BOUGHT that ride with an hour's worth of determined work hauling myself and my groceries up various hills to get there. It means so much more than if I was just, say, dropped off by some kind of conveyor belt which was installed so I would only have to ride down the hill, not up it.

I am proud that my groceries no longer cost any sort of gasoline or pollution for me to go get. That is really an incidental pride, because it's not the main reason I'm doing this at all, but still the good feeling is there. I know I'm on the side of world sustainability, rather than ... uh ... the other side. (Sorry.) I don't mean to make folks feel bad who haven't also made this choice for themselves, but I can't deny there is a certain blessing in recognizing that in this, at least, I am no longer part of the problem.

Oh, here's a nice incidental benefit: I'm getting a tan! Me, the bookworm who is normally so pale I practically glow in the dark. My skin has a lovely glow, and I look like the picture of health. I'm sure it's doing wonders for my Vitamin D count as well, which might also have something to do with why I feel so darned happy lately, and am no longer depressed (although falling in love with Johan certainly might have a lot to do with that as well).

Today I bought a basket to put on the Raleigh's handlebars. For the kind of utility biking that we do, that bike was woefully inadequate. It is fun and light to ride, but having to fit everything you want to carry into a backpack was not convenient. This improvement will provide a spot to throw the bike chain, a purse, or maybe a few groceries. Next I intend to buy a rack to install over the back wheel. It won't carry anywhere near as much as the Mundo, but at least it will give a spot to strap on something bulky like a new pillow or an economy package of paper towels. With these extensions and a backpack, the Raleigh could become a very valuable "touch-up" shopping vehicle, so we won't have to haul out the Mundo for every little loaf of bread.

I had other things I intended to talk about today, but this post is already getting way long. I'm not such a great writer that I'm willing to go back and edit it to be a really cohesive and tight "article". But these are some things that have been on my mind today. Tomorrow I'll try to catch up with the other things I'd intended to get around to, such as why I intend to lose my bike.

Love Incoming!

2010-08-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

This isn't directly about biking, but it's important to my life, so I'm gonna talk about it now.

Johan met me about a month ago, based on a series of coincidences that all started because of our Yuba Mundos. Though he lives in Brussels, and I live in Seattle, we both share a passion for environmentalism, energy conservation, biking, and awareness for Asperger's Syndrome, which we both have. He posted a letter to the YM site talking about a cool experience he had on his bike, and from there he saw my blog (that you're reading now). He liked what he read, and he looked me up on Facebook. We started chatting, and very quickly (as Aspies are wont to do) fell in love.

Since then we have been inseparable. Well, except for the 5000 miles which actually separates us, that is.

At the end of this month, though, even that distance will no longer be an obstacle. He has got his passport, and has booked a flight, and will be arriving in about ten days! His first stay is going to be for three weeks. I've gotten special approval from my landlord and the Section 8 Housing Authority to have him as my guest for that extended time. (The normal limit is two weeks.)

E-mails and IM chats and phone calls and video calls with a webcam are all a great blessing, and I'm glad we have so many different ways to keep in touch. But in a matter of days, we'll be able to start being in TOUCH!!!

My heart is all a-quiver. (Cue tinkly cupid music.)

Without Stopping

2010-08-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I did it!!!

Yesterday I went shopping at Wal-Mart for milk and eggs and bread. I rode my daughter's Raleigh, and wore a backpack to bring the groceries home in.

I travelled up Fairgrounds Rd, down 303 to the store, and made it all the way without stopping once! I can hardly believe it. The distance is only a little more than three and a half miles, but the hills do make it very challenging.

Here is a map of my route. I travelled clockwise.
Wal-Mart Round Trip

The entire trip took me about an hour, including time for shopping. I've never made this trip before without needing to stop at the bottom of the three steepest hills to rest and walk up them, pushing my bike by hand. I am incredibly proud that I made it all the way this time in one go!

As I approached each hill I remember just looking at it and saying to myself that I thought I could do it. I'm not one for "positive thinking" and I wouldn't have said I thought I could do it if I knew I really couldn't. But on this day I didn't have a headache, the weather wasn't terribly hot, I was feeling strong, and I was travelling alone, so I didn't have to worry about pacing myself to the needs of a child biking with me, that I would otherwise have to keep an eye on and protect.

When I got home I felt extremely proud. I also felt extremely light-headed and exhausted, because I did not remember to hydrate properly when I had the chance at Wal-Mart. I was quite thirsty, and guzzled about a quart of water as soon as I got home, and was too tired to put away the groceries or even lock up the bike myself. Thank god for helpful children! For a while there I thought I might pass out. Lesson learned: Don't forget to hydrate!

Still, I made it. One breath at a time. I found it very helpful during the most challenging sections of the ride to take my eyes off the hilltop and focus instead on just my own legs, matching the pace of my pedalling to the pace of my breathing, counting so many in against so many out. I think it was therapeutic, like Lamaze breathing or something. The ratio of in-to-out was usually not one-to-one, but those slight differences at least gave me something to focus on, other than just my fear that I couldn't do it.

It was a very successful trip. I hope to make this trip a regular sort of jaunt from now on, that I feel brave enough to bike whenever we need a loaf of bread.

Photos of the trip to Fred Meyer today.

2010-08-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

This is my daughter, Amanda. She's a sweet girl.

She supports my decision to bike instead of drive, and helps me in many ways.

This is the steep part of the hill on McWilliams Rd.

Yes, it is every bit as steep as it looks. Probably more.

I don't know if 'Manda could ride up it on her bike, but I sure cannot. So she walks it with me.

Our bikes chained to a post outside Fred Meyer.

(No bike rack was available.)

I'm liking how shiny the reflectors look in the flash.

These are the groceries we will load into the Yuba Mundo.

Here's me loading the groceries in.

Everything fits! Buckle up and let's get ready to ride.

It's amazing how much these saddlebags can carry.

Lord in Heaven, it feels embarrassing to see a photograph of how big I really am.

I'm not used to seeing myself from this angle, in a full-length view.

(And I have to admit, those shoes are not exactly fashion-forward.)

But the Yuba Mundo rides like a dream, and we got home in one piece, no trouble.

Another year of riding to the store like this every week, and just maybe my shape could change, too!

(And honestly, even as goofy as they are, I really do feel comfy in the shoes.)

The grocery run was successful.

Yay, Yuba Mundo!

I know if I can do this, just about anyone could.

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that I was putting myself down a bit too much with some of the things I commented about my own weight and gray hair in the original post. Thing are the way they are, and after thinking about it some more I do agree. There is no benefit, really, in me insulting myself. So I've edited out most of those comments, and leave this revised version hopefully a bit more positive.

Fred Meyer Run Number Two

2010-08-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

OMG, I can't believe how much easier the trip was this time!

Probably the fact that the weather was 60 instead of 80 degrees had something to do with it. Nice and cloudy, with a tiny sprinkling of rain. Not enough to get WET, just enough to feel blessed.

Also, the fact that I'm NOT feeling weak today helped a lot.

And I don't feel a migraine coming on. (Last time I did this I got a terrible migraine within an hour of getting home, that lasted until... well... yesterday.)

Finally, the groceries I brought home today were lighter than the shopping I did the other day. Although I did let the checker bag the groceries for me, and I counted 16 bags, plus milk and potatoes. (Checkers always bag so lightly into those plastic bags. Normally I bring my own cloth bags, and stuff them quite full.)

Anyway, all together it turned out to be a very doable trip. On the way there we only had to rest twice instead of four times. I felt tired each time, but not like I was gonna DIE. On the way home we didn't have to rest at all.

Of course, it also helped that Amanda took over pushing the Mundo up the steep hill by Safeway, and went ahead and rode it home from there. MAN, OH MAN is it ever easier to push the Raleigh up hills!!! Geez, I didn't know how hard it had been for me. The Mundo does ride very well, and I do love it, but uphill its weight (and the weight of its cargo) does get noticeable. It does make me wish (again and again) that I'd sprung for the motorized version.

At the store we were once again stopped by passers-by who just HAD to know more about this amazing bike. One man chatted with us for half an hour, and took pictures and everything. Another woman was our school librarian, who is also an avid cyclist. This was her first time seeing the Mundo, and she was very impressed.

Shopping went well. The whole biking trip was pleasant. I feel really good about doing this again! The other day I know I was not in top form, which was why it was so painful. I do hope to do this more regularly, though, and build up my muscles and endurance. Maybe someday I won't even need to take any rests.

This may be off topic (or it may not) but yesterday I saw a video series on YouTube about Eddie Izzard (the comedian) who decided last year (with no previous running experience) to run a marathon. Actually, not a marathon, but FORTY-THREE marathons in a row, all the way around the UK for a total of over 1,100 miles. What he put himself through was gruelling. I thought I had it bad, but he was nearly super-human! After seeing his show I was so inspired I knew I had to quit whining and do more to get stronger. He grew so much. I can grow too.

Here's the link to see the first installment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aetnOwJx8MM
Or just search for "Eddie Izzard Marathon Man".

toughest trip yet

2010-08-05T17:55:00.000-07:00

That.

Was TOUGH.

ouch.

I didn't check back in after my last post to say how it went, because I didn't actually end up going. I don't remember why. I'm sure it seemed like a good reason at the time.

Then yesterday I suffered a migraine.

So today (after a cozy four-hour IM chat with Johan) I finally pulled all my gumption together (and my daughter) and made the trip. We left about 12:30 or 1pm.

I won't abuse your sensibilities by cussing at you on screen to the extent that I would normally do if you were standing in front of me right now. Suffice to say that was WAY tougher than I thought it was gonna be, and everything in my body hurts.

Maybe it didn't help that I've skipped most of my biking practice this week, and even when I did go I kinda took it light. I just haven't felt strong lately.

Today I didn't feel strong either. As soon as I got on my bike I immediately recognized that this was one of those days when I just haven't got a lot of energy or strength. The bike - EMPTY - felt twice as heavy as normal. I had to gear down to granny 1-1 just to make it to the top of the parking lot. Then I needed a rest.   I don't know what's up with me, but I was panting and hot and seriously not feeling like my normal lioness self.

But the commitment was made. I had company. We were seriously getting down to no food (eating peanut butter on spoons), and I really had no choice. If I could have asked a friend to drive me I would have, I felt that much not up to doing this. But no help was available, so it was up to me.

We went down Central Valley, up Mc Williams, and then down Wheaton Way to Fred Meyer.   Almost everything but Central Valley turned out to be uphill.   Even though a lot of the way wasn't steep hills, still I just felt too weak to be able to ride up them. We walked a lot of the way, and rested about four times. Thank god for shady trees and water bottles! My heart was pounding, I was panting, and I could barely catch my breath. And this was just the trip UP there, with an empty bike!

At one point I got so hot and sweaty and tired that I just took my water bottle and started squirting it over my head, letting the shockingly cool water trickle into my hair and drip on my shirt. Now I am not cool enough to wear actual biking shirts, oh no. I'm not even cool enough to wear some sort of "exercise" shirt with modern stay-dry fabric. This was just a cotton T-shirt with a deeply scooped neckline. So yes, visions of me doing a wet T-shirt contest did flash through my head. Since I was the only contestant, I mentally crowned myself Queen and forgot about it. The cool water did help a lot. I thought I was getting dangerously overheated there.

We got to the store without incident, and chained up our bikes to a handy hitching post. I was grateful to find one there. Yay, Fred Meyer! Strangely, though, we found not one, but two bike locks already locked to the bike rack, though no other bikes were there.    No idea what that was all about.

The store felt wonderfully cool and refreshing.   We wandered to the outdoor furniture display to rest our sweaty bodies a while.   (I was too conscientious to sit in the NICE furniture.)

After I felt able to struggle again to my feet, I did my normal shopping. I got a very full cartload of groceries, including three gallons of soymilk and plenty of meat. We've been doing without these for the past week or so, and it all looked luxurious! Besides, I wanted to buy as much as I could on this trip, so I wouldn't have to go through this torture again any time soon.

I told the cashier to put all my cold items into insulated bags (that I brought), and everything else just throw it into the basket, as I would be repacking it into the saddlebags. Somehow everything never goes back into a cart the same way after checking, though, and it took two baskets to get it all outside. I spent about $200.00 on everything.

Packing things into the saddlebags was an adventure. People stopped and stared and chatted with us quite a bit. I must have introduced my Yuba Mundo to half a dozen people at least.   Some were amused. Some were baffled. One man in particular seemed very impressed, asked about specifics concerning it's length and rideability and where I got it, etc. I think he may be contacting the YM people one of these days! I finished packing everything away (it just BAAAAAARRRRREEEELY fit!) and he watched with amazement at how easily it handled under such a full load.

The ride home was deliciously easier, in that most of it was gently downhill. (Coasting FTW!) I saw other cyclists on the road, crouched over their racing bikes, pedalling downhill, and I felt like a kid. Why should I race? I'm in no hurry. I just want to get there in one piece, tyvm.

The first part of McWilliams road was steeply uphill for maybe a scant quarter of a mile. But I do mean STEEP. We walked it and had to rest twice. My bike weighed a TON. I had to balance it carefully to keep it from tipping over.

Then we got to more coasting. That was fun.

Then more uphill. Not so much fun.   But Central Valley (uphill) is a pretty gentle grade until you get to the school. I made it, in low gear.

Then through the school grounds for a shortcut, impressively riding right through the door in the chain link fence, scraping both sides of the saddlebags but NOT getting stuck, and then not hitting the next super-steep little bit of a hillock fast enough, so the entire bike nearly fell back downhill with me. I screamed for Amanda to come help me, and she dropped her bike and ran to give me a hand. Between the two of us we muscled it up that teetery last foot or so, and everything ended up being just fine, though my heart and lungs and everything seriously hurt a lot by this time.

I wanted nothing more than to lie in the bathtub fully dressed, with the cold shower on me. I felt like I was gonna throw up. But the groceries still needed carrying in, and the bike wasn't perfectly balanced, so somebody had to hold it while the other unloaded. (I SO want my double kickstand to arrive! It is August now! They said it would be shipped soon!   I hope it's on its way, though I haven't had any word yet!!!)

I told Amanda not to unpack any bags. I wanted to weigh them all, to see what sort of feat of strength I'd actually pulled.

I did take that cold shower first.   I'm not kidding when I say that I may have strained myself quite a bit farther than was safe. I was seriously overheated even though I'd been drinking quarts of water, and even with the cold shower on me for 20 minutes I did not fully cool down.

Then I weighed the bags, on the bathroom scale. We brought home a total of 120lbs of groceries, which I'm guessing was the equivalent of about 12 bags of groceries, had they all been bagged.

I'm glad that's over. I wish I never had to do that again. The whole trip took us four hours, and was GRUELLING.

My only consolation is that now we have most of the food for the next two weeks, and can get by with just another touch-up trip for milk and bread, etc, next week. I hope.

So yay me. I think I'll go die now.

Bleahhhhhhh. X(

Grocery Shopping

2010-08-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Today is the day! The weather is cloudy and not too hot, the bank account is full of fresh new money for the month, and the refrigerator is so empty we've been eating plain spaghetti for the past two days.

IT IS TIME TO GO SHOPPING!

This will be my first time biking all the way to my favorite grocery store, intending to bring home a full cartload of groceries. I've done it many times using my folding push basket on the bus, but this will be the first time I attempt it on my Yuba Mundo.

I'm not worried that I will have any trouble. The tough part of the trip is the hilly section close to my house. Once I get on the main street (hwy 303) the going is relatively level, and the road has a generous shoulder to bike on. Since I know I can get past the first two hilly miles, I know that the remaining level miles will be a piece of cake.

I'm taking my son along, because I like the company and he can use the outing. He'll be riding his sister's Raleigh. His old Mongoose is honestly in such bad condition that we've decided the thing to do is to throw it away entirely and focus on buying him a Raleigh of his own as soon as we can. It is a comfortable and versitile bike with enough variability in the seat height to accommodate a ten-year-old or an adult.

Honestly, some day I hope Yuba Mundo comes out with a "junior" version. It would be nice to have a mini cargo bike my son could use, and that way I could bring even MORE groceries home from the store! Oh, it would be so nice if it would fit in a bus' bike rack, too! Not every trip requires a full 400lb load, but it would be splendid if sometimes we had the option of taking maybe ONE hundred pounds of groceries or camping gear or whatever on a hybrid trip, using both bus AND bike.

Exercise is great, but sometimes a bit of help is welcome.

Get on it, Yuba people! Your loving public has spoken!

Revealing my big news

2010-07-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

Strange how life flows in circles sometimes.

Today I woke up at about 4am as usual. But I wasn't awakened by the cat, and I got WAY more than four hours of sleep. I put myself to bed last night at the ridiculously early hour of 8pm, because my day of being awesome did take a bit out of me after all.

Just for the sake of completeness I will report that I finished my yester-awesome-day by cooking lentil soup for dinner, supervising my ten year old while he (reluctantly) cleaned and vacuumed the living room, and then taught my daughter how to make rice pudding. Also watched "Hell's Kitchen" and "Huge".

The episode of Huge included lots of romantic teenage angst over wanting to be in love with someone, and also bits about writing poetry or love songs to try to express your deep feelings, whether they be for a particular person or just in general. That episode really spoke to me, because I find writing to be my most powerful therapy sometimes. When I feel things deeply I cannot bear NOT to write about them. I've kept a diary since I was about 14 years old, and to me writing is a basic need.

Sometimes I write poetry, but mostly I just write.

Lately I've been writing a lot (though not here). I've been writing to my new boyfriend Johan.

Gosh. Seeing it written down (in public!) like that is still so strange and amazing to me! "My new boyfriend Johan".   Ooooo, I feel all tingly over it!

This is quite a story.

Johan is a new user of the Yuba Mundo, just like me. Well, not JUST like me, because he is an experienced cyclist already and is in pretty good shape. But he noticed my blog because of the link from the Yuba Mundo website. Then he found me on Facebook, and we started chatting and giving high-fives over how smart we both were to buy this wonderful contraption. It was like being in a little two-man booster club!

He was very sweet to chat with. He teased me over being a Farmville addict, and I smiled inside to see him being so enthusiastic and cheerful about his new bike, and gushing to me in slightly broken English, because his native language is Dutch.   Our one-liners became paragraphs. We switched to e-mails and our paragraphs became letters.

I found out that just like me, Johan has Asperger's Syndrome. AS is not a very well known or understood disorder. It isn't a disease, it's more like a different way of being built. He and I are both perfectly normal people -- for aspies. But this difference in the way our brains are wired makes us very socially awkward around neurotypical people. We think certain ways of talking and behaving make perfect sense, but most people would think we were pretty off the wall for behaving the way we do. But the huge blessing is that although fitting in with most of society is anywhere from awkward to extremely difficult for us, recognizing and understanding each other is extremely easy.

So besides the fact that we had this one MASSIVE thing in common (okay, two, because we both ride a Mundo!) we also discovered very quickly that we are about the same age, both divorced ten years, with similar passion for environmentalism and with compatible religious views.    So how in the world could we possibly NOT want to start dating?

Well... the fact that he lives in Belgium and I live in Washington State USA does seem to be a TINY impediment... But honestly, compared to all the other things we just overcame to be right for each other, what's a mere 5,000 miles?

So while the rest of the world tortures itself with angst over love, always wondering where they stand and whether they'll be loved back and whether their love is being honest and true with them, suddenly I don't have that problem anymore. Johan and I (like pretty much all aspies) are almost congenitally honest and up-front with everything we think and feel. It took us all of three days to begin feeling like we belonged together, and only a few days beyond that to feel like we were really falling in love.

So obviously the next step is for us to actually MEET. So obviously Johan will be flying out to meet me some time within the next month. After all, it would be just silly to continue dating each other if it turned out that in person we didn't have good chemistry and didn't really click.

My god, it's so incredible. It's so SENSIBLE, yet amazingly weird. NOTHING in this life is sensible!   Now here I get to have a relationship that isn't based on games and selfishness and hormones and societal expectations. I get to have a relationship purely based on the connection of two souls who respect and admire and appreciate each other. And it wasn't even hard!   He's intelligent and sweet and funny and kind and brave and transparent and wonderful. He's everything I needed and wanted in a man, plus several bonuses like being international and multilingual and musical and stuff. And he likes me. He has read my blog and knows pretty much everything about me, and has decided that he totally likes me anyway. Maybe even LOVES me. (sigh)

Truth be told, when he shows up here he would have to have his head on backwards and be wearing mismatched socks for me to not find him attractive. Chemistry be damned, I WANT this man! Heck, I might even be willing to overlook having his head on backwards. (Might make kissing awkward, though.)

So that's my big news. He and I have been joking for a week now about Yuba Mundo's slogan "What a Bicycle Can Do". Apparently a bicycle can bring two people together from opposite ends of the earth.

The Awesome Continues!

2010-07-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

This morning when I wrote of all I'd done by 8:30 I thought THAT was impressive. I accomplished more before 9am than I usually do all day!

Then, I topped even myself. My friend Kathy phoned me and needed to commiserate for a while because of various stresses she is under. Soon I realized what she really needed was a visit, and someone to take a bit of weight off her shoulders. So I offered to come over and help her some with laundry and housecleaning.

Luckily the ride to her house is all downhill, and is a relatively gentle slope at that. I arrived in pretty fair shape, not too tired, and was able to be a big help for a few hours. It was great catching up with my friend.

The ride home, however, was pretty darned difficult. The same gentle slope that I coasted down before suddenly took on almost monstrous proportions when I had to bike back UP it, after working so hard all day. This is more total miles in one day than I think I have ever logged so far. I rode much of the way home in granny gear 1-1. It was barely faster than a walking speed, and my thigh muscles felt it rather a lot. What REALLY hurt, though, was my seat. About halfway home I found it impossible to position myself so that my seat was comfortable anymore. The gel cover helped a lot, I'm sure, but I guess it can only help so much. It makes me want to buy one of those tractor-sized bike seats I've seen at the bike shop. I think a better distribution of weight might be helpful on those long rides.

The lady at the bike shop discouraged me from buying one of those seats, saying its width could somehow impair the full range of motion for the legs as they cycle. At this point, though, I'm not convinced it wouldn't be a decent trade-off. I do not enjoy pain.

Still, I am very proud of all the good work I've done today. After having felt mostly dead all year, I finally feel now as if I'm waking up from this depression which has kept me so groggy and lethargic and immobile. I feel like Lazarus rising from the grave. For the past several days now, my energy levels have continued to rise, and my outlook has become brighter and clearer almost hourly.

Of course, the thing to fear is that this is nothing more than a bipolar upswing, but for now I am not manic, I am not jittery, I am not feeling out of control in any way. I simply feel a lifting of the leaden weight that I'd been living under for so long.

Even more news does need to be revealed. Somehow it still does not fit in with today's news, though, so I will find time to make it fit tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

How to start an AWESOME day!

2010-07-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Ah, yes. Today I AM awesome!

Woke this morning at 6:30, after having gone to bed about midnight. That is the best thing approaching a decent night's sleep that I've had in as long as I can remember. Normally I'll crawl to bed long about 1am or perhaps as late as 2, and pretty much always have woken up at 4am.

I lay there in bed for twenty minutes just allowing myself to wake slowly and think about what I wanted to accomplish today. Knowing that I did NOT have to rush to go tend my "Farm" gave me a lot of flexibility. I thought about the dream I'd just had (I actually DREAMED about walking away from my Farmville trap!) and as I lay there I straightened out my covers and pillows. (This is as close to "making my bed" as I think I'm ever going to come.)

Kitty was sleeping at the foot of my bed, as usual. So she gets petted a little, because she loves me and feels sad if I ignore her. Such a loyal little cat she is. People say cats don't care, but they never met my Kitty. (Yes, Kitty IS her name.)

As per my plan that I had planned just while lying there, I got up and put my robotic servants to work. That means I got the washer and dryer and dishwasher all going, after having put away whatever clean stuff they'd produced from last night's labors.

Actually, though, that wasn't the first thing I did. I don't know why, but this morning I felt really good and I wanted to look as good as I felt. I took a shower last night (to "baptize" myself into my new life) so I was already clean and my hair was shiny and fluffy. Yesterday at the store I picked up a little new makeup. So this morning the VERY first thing I did was to freshen up my face and put the new makeup on. Just a very natural shade of lipstick, really, and some fresh mascara. But it was enough to make me look totally awake and ready for the day! Then I put on my apron and started doing those basic morning chores. I was very proud to think of myself looking like an interpretation of Donna Reed or something in my makeup, pretty hair, laciest pyjamas and cleaning apron!

I shined the kitchen sink, fed the fish, and revelled in the smooth and shiny floor which I had mopped last night. I also took a caffeine pill, because I have decided that if 90% of the adult population drinks caffeine to get their mornings going, it would not be out of line for me to accept that help too. It's better than allowing myself to schlump my way through another day because I'm trying to be noble or drug-free or something. That strategy hasn't worked. Avoiding caffeine hasn't made my body's natural energy regulate itself and rise up. It has just allowed me to fall into that terrible depression and lethargic slump from which I am now finally emerging. With the help of caffeine, among other things.

(Let me state very clearly right now that among those "other things" I'm mentioning I do NOT mean any other sort of drugs. But I will talk about the "other things" in a minute.)

Okay, so the laundry is going, the dishes are going, the kitchen is 90% shiny, and I look beautiful. I took off my pajamas and put on a pair of shorts, and went for a bike ride. I remembered how fun those early-morning rides were when I used to do them. All alone in the crisp morning air before the day gets hot and the screaming children come out to play. It was wonderful. I did two laps fully around the parking lot including the big hill in top gear! I was amazed that I had the strength for that. Then my heart began feeling like it was beating a bit too hard, so I went back to my easier half-laps back and forth along the relatively flat section. I did probably 12 or 15 laps total. Not enough to be amazed at my endurance, but enough to break a sweat, certainly. And this was just intended to be an easy morning ride to greet the day. I wanted to save a little energy to ride more later if I wanted to.

Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention that I was also good enough to remember to take out all the garbage on my way towards taking my first lap. I bought some bungee cords the other day so I could easily strap a large Rubbermaid container to the Mundo and carry out garbage that way. It worked well, and the setup stayed strapped on until I finished my entire ride. I feel very pleased that my house is now so much cleaner and fresher than it was at this same time yesterday!

So that's what I've done in my first two hours this morning. Today I feel like a live human being!

This blog post is getting a little bit long, so although I do still have more I'd like to talk about I am going to stop here for now. Right now I'm just revelling in the fact that I finally feel free! I hardly know what to do with the rest of my day, but I'm going to go off now and start making plans. I don't want to lose this momentum.

It is time for breakfast. :)

Do I suck, or am I awesome?

2010-07-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

God, I'm such a lazy ass. I disgust myself.

Today I was awesome, though!

For the past week I have barely ridden at all. I've been preoccupied doing stupid stuff online, playing Farmville. I can't stop playing. I wish I had better control over myself. I wish I didn't feel this need to play constantly. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is play for a few hours "just to get some basic chores out of the way". I always think it will take "just a few minutes", and then I look up and it has been three or four hours.

What's worse is that after having done that, I will take a break to go make breakfast, or perhaps go back to bed because I only got a couple hours of sleep anyway. Then I will get BACK on, and play some more! I suck. I suck, I suck, I suck. Suckorama Mama. That's me.

After playing all morning and all afternoon, do you think I would call it quits and not play all night? Not hardly. That's why I'm getting so little sleep. I'm staying up till all hours to put in "just one more crop", or because I have to mind the feed on the home page in case somebody is about to give a bonus which I'll simply perish if I cannot claim.

So nothing is getting done around my house. I'm a slob and I'm not doing my job. And I hate myself for it.

Okay, well HATE is a strong word. I'm truly disappointed in my behavior, because I know I'm capable of much better. I know I am. I see myself in my mind being a GOOD mother. I see myself running a TIDY house, where the laundry is always fresh and the floors are always vacuumed and the counters always shine. I SEE this. In my mind that's the real me. This me that is obsessed with playing a damned worthless video game is somehow not the real me. That's a broken and sick version of me. It's a needy and sad and hopeless shadow of the real me. The real me is a strong woman. The real me doesn't need video games or TV or novels or endless hobbies to distract her way through all the hours of a year. The real me is someone who gets things done, makes a difference, is respectable, and accomplishes worthwhile goals. That's the me worthy of my name.

I've got to stop this. I cannot continue wasting my life this way. I don't even remember the past couple of months. I don't think I've accomplished anything significant since I first got a Facebook account. I think I'm going to have to quit it all cold turkey.

God, think of all the hours in my day I'll have to do other things with!

.
.
.

So, hello. That was just off the top of my head. Not even what I intended to write about today. But it's true, and I guess somehow it needed to be said. I needed to see it in writing. Wow. Kinda hard to see.

But here's what I really intended to write about today: Today my son and I biked once again to Wal-Mart. It was tiring, but I'm proud we did it. We brought home a very full shopping cart's worth of purchases in the saddlebags of the Yuba Mundo. We got plenty of courtesy from every driver who passed us, and I was very pleased about that. Again, I think they are extra-considerate when they see my son with me, because people care about little kids. And maybe they don't mind the moms who are obviously just trying to get the value-pack of Charmin home in safety.

So today I am awesome. I'll let you know tomorrow whether I can keep it up.

Better biking today.

2010-07-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

Biking never ceases to amaze me. Today after confessing all that pain on this blog I had a date with a friend to go shopping. We just got a few groceries, but it did get me showered and dressed and out of the house.

When we came home I made my son put away all the groceries. I grabbed the bike and went for a ride.

At first I just told myself I'd only probably be able to do a few laps. I was riding my daughter's Raleigh, because I wanted the exercise to be gentle and I didn't want kids tempted to ask for rides. Even so, I felt most likely to quit after three laps max.

In fact the first lap or two did feel pretty hard. But then... I dunno... it was weird... somehow each lap after that seemed to get easier and easier. And it got more and more fun! I was zooming around the parking lot, leaning into corners, playing accuracy games dodging little rocks or something, and at one point I even started trying to learn to ride with one hand. Someday I want to be able to ride no-handed, like I did when I was 10.

I don't know how many laps I did, but it must have been at least 15 or 20. Could have been 25 or 30. I was having way too much fun to count.

At one point my neighbor got her bike out to ride with me a bit. She pooped out after only about five laps or so. Part of me wanted to quit when she did, just out of solidarity, but the better part of me said "Nah, I can do just a couple more laps!" and I ended up doing at least another ten laps after she gave out.

Even when I finally stopped, I didn't feel winded. I didn't feel like I needed to quit. I didn't feel sore, though I was beginning to feel that my muscles had been well-used. It just felt like all the rust got flushed out of my pipes. I felt twenty times better after my ride than I did before it!

Some things that might have made the difference: Today wasn't so hot. I was better hydrated. I rode more gently, without pushing myself beyond what felt comfortable (as far as speed or conquering hills, or carrying extra weight).

So that was great.

Tomorrow morning I plan to ride with my daughter to Wal-Mart. She wants to ride in the mornings for her Senior Project, but hasn't gotten the motivation yet to get out of bed and go before school. I'm going to help her find that motivation. It's always easier to face a challenging task with a friend for morale than it is to face it alone. I hope I can be a good help to her.

Depression and migraines

2010-07-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

This past week I've done very little biking. I went out for a ride yesterday and came in panting after about ten minutes. Granted, I was giving children rides on the Mundo, but I've done that before for up to an hour without feeling noodley afterwards. Yesterday I felt like I was gonna collapse.

Maybe it's just that I'm biking so little that I'm out of shape.
Maybe it's that I have a bit of a cold (I do, actually) and that is sapping my strength.
Maybe it was just kinda hot yesterday and I forgot to hydrate well enough.
Maybe all three.

So the obvious answer is to go out today and work GENTLY to get myself back into shape, after hydrating very well.

Today isn't even hot.

God, I'm so depressed. I don't want to leave the computer chair. When I say I'm a couch potato that is a lie, because actually I'm a computer chair potato. I play Farmville like my life depended on it.

I've been depressed for a long time now. Some days are pretty good and I hardly even feel it, but some days are sucky bad, and I can't even bear to move. Hardly want to even shower and take care of myself. Everything in my whole body hurts with an indefineable ache of tiredness and just an unwillingness to LIVE.

If life is motion, then that's exactly what I don't want to do. I don't want to move. Maybe that would be the best thing for me, but in order to get THERE, I have to get past being HERE. And here sucks like a tar pit.

Plus, did I mention my migraines? I've been suffering a week of the worst migraines I've had this year. They've woken me up most mornings this week. I take the medicine to fight them, and all the blood vessels in my body shrink. That is how they combat the migraine pain caused by the blood vessels in the brain swelling so much that they hurt. The side effects don't bother major arteries or even medium or small blood vessels. They can shrink a bit and not really notice. But capillaries are blood vessels everywhere in your body that are so small that even the red blood cells have to line up single file and go through sideways to fit. When they shrink, there just isn't really room anymore. So all my extremities get very cold, and all my hair follicles hurt, and my digestive tract feels like it's full of rocks, and I just want to lie down in a hot bath or sleep for the rest of the day. Which, ironically enough, is actually preferable to the seething pain of the migraine. But not a lot gets done.

I need caffeine. I feel like if I took a caffeine pill I'd have enough energy to do something for an hour or two. Not much, but at least wouldn't be completely stuck. I don't drink coffee or sodas or anything like that. I just take caffeine pills occasionally, because I figure if I'm going to drug myself I should at least be aware that I'm doing it, not take it incidentally along with my tasty beverages.

Biking in Silverdale

2010-07-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

This morning I had an appointment at 10am. The temperature was probably about 79degrees by that hour of the morning. I took the bus from my house to Silverdale, and used Amanda's Raleigh to bike from the bus to my appointment. It took me less than ten minutes to bike the route it took me 25 minutes to walk last time. I was very pleased.

Unfortunately, the day was hot enough that I still arrived very sweaty and radiating heat. I did bring along a palm leaf fan, which helped a lot. Plus, the folks there were kind enough to give me a bottle of water, since I drank mine all up. I need to start packing multiple bottles of water from now on.

After my appointment I biked all over Silverdale. The town is in a nice little valley down off the hills, so everything is relatively flat. Also, Silverdale is a relatively new town, full of shopping, and has nice sidewalks everywhere. So I had a wonderful time biking everywhere and getting to know my town from a two-wheeled perspective. I think I'll be biking there a lot more often now!

One thing that did disappoint me, though, was that bicycle racks were so rare. I saw exactly ONE, outside the main entrance to the food court at the mall. No other business that I passed had any accommodation for bikes. How sad. When I wanted to go inside I had to chain my bike up to a sign or something.

Maybe I should contact the city council? I don't know how much good that would do. But it seems to me they should be made aware that there is a demand now for more bike racks. Maybe they could suggest it to businesses. I was not the only cyclist I saw, by far. Yet if we are to really grow in number, there must be some way we can keep our bikes safe while shopping.

Another thing I did today was to bike the Clear Creek Trail. That was wonderful! The woods were green and fresh and cool, and the creek makes bubbling delightful sounds whenever the trail gets close to it. Unfortunately, the trail needs maintenance very much. Many parts of the trail are overgrown with plants and hanging branches. I ended up with a few scratches from blackberry vines. Still, it was lovely. I know I'll do that again.

All in all I spent a good hour just toodling around Silverdale today. Finally bussed home long about 2pm. I feel really proud that now I've extended my mobility to include all of Silverdale! I will do as much shopping there as possible now, to take advantage of the good biking conditions.

Sunny day at last!

2010-07-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

Tuesday I had a lot of errands to run. My friend Kathy was kind enough to drive me around to the various places I had to go. I must admit, cars are certainly great time savers! It would have been impossible for me to bike to all those different and far-flung places by myself in one day. I could have possibly done each errand, but it would have taken me at least two days worth of bus trips.

The good news is that God listened to me (as I knew he would) and the weather has turned very nice and warm. It must be a sweet 80 degrees today, and it isn't even the hottest part of the afternoon yet!

Today I got kinda hyper about getting everything cleaned. I don't know why. The mood just came over me. So I enlisted my kids' help, and we cleared the decks together. The kitchen and dining room are both in good shape now, and the laundry is getting caught up.

Then my daughter Amanda decided it was important for us to all go biking together. Much as inertia wanted to keep me planted on the couch indoors watching TV, I knew I'd better show God that I appreciated all this sunshine he finally brought me. I knew after a few laps on the bike I would appreciate the indoors' cool shadiness even more.

Since we were ALL going to bike a few laps, that meant Adam had to use his old bike. This is the bike he got two years ago for his birthday. We kept it on the back porch and it was rarely ridden. In all that time it never got a tune-up. Now it is pretty rusty and not nice. The gears won't shift. It seriously needs refurbishing or replacing. It's actually starting to get a little small for him, so I'm going to look into replacing it, if I can find a new one that's affordable.

Speaking of bike problems, though, I seem to have just developed a problem with my Mundo. I was giving Adam a ride around the neighborhood and when he got off suddenly the back brake didn't work anymore. Obviously he must have somehow gotten his foot tangled in it and kicked loose that derailleur that controls the back brake. I don't know how to get it back together, though, so I'm going to need another trip to the bike store.

The ride to Judy's House

2010-07-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm back. That was surprising. The ride went about the opposite of how I expected it to go. Biking TO Judy's house (which is mostly a gentle downhill slope) was absolutely EXHAUSTING, but after sitting, resting, working on some stuff, and drinking about three quarts of water (no joke), I was able to bike home, and the ride back felt just fine.

Maybe the ride there felt so hard because I was dehydrated and didn't know it. Drinking that much water is obviously an indication that I was seriously lacking. I had a couple more cups of water after I finally got home.

Maybe the ride there was harder than I expected it to be, because I was trying so hard to keep up with traffic. Being a downhill slope I expected gravity to assist me too much, and I pushed myself very hard to ride fast in top gear. On the way home I knew I was tired and gave myself permission to go slow. Baby slow. Barely-faster-than-I-could-walk slow. I stayed in low gears, and thought like an eight year old. A kid wouldn't kill themselves to ride fast if they were tired. They'd ride however fast they comfortably could, and let the rest of the world adjust around them.

That gentle strategy seemed really appropriate for me on the way home. Going so slowly (probably about five miles per hour) I didn't feel that I necessarily had to take up a lane in traffic. Sometimes I even rode on the gravel shoulder to let cars pass, because I was going so slowly I didn't feel very afraid of slipping or hurting myself if I did. Cars passed me without making any big deal about it.

Ironically, they DID make a big deal about passing me when I was going faster, downhill. They threw me dirty looks, and passed too close, and crossed double yellow lines around a hairpin turn just to get in front of me, even though I was hardly doing less than the speed limit.

What's that all about? They're sweet as pie to a feeble person toddling along, but pissy as hell to someone doing only slightly less than they want. Heck, they probably would have been just as rude to me if I had been doing the speed limit, just because I wasn't going the five or ten miles OVER the speed limit that they wanted to do.

Oh, well. Nothing makes any sense. People are mean, and I'm glad I'm home now.

The ride was good for me. I can feel my system moving much more lively-er than it did this morning. I hope tomorrow I can find time to get a little riding in around the appointments I've got, just so I don't get sluggish again.

A week off

2010-07-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

Argh. You'd think that I'd have gotten into the habit of riding every day by now.   But no. I've been terribly depressed for the past week and haven't set foot to pedal since my ride last Tuesday to Wal-Mart. The weather has been cold and cloudy, and every day I have woken up feeling like I could hardly bear to face the day. I've slept long hours in the day and stayed up ridiculously late at night playing Facebook games. I feel terrible.

Today I will break that pattern. I've made a date to go visit my friend Judy who lives maybe two miles away.   No really steep hills, either! So I will bike over there and back, and hopefully that will help break me out of this sluggish cycle I've gotten into.

My whole body aches all over. I know that's the depression. I know that moving will make me feel a hundred times better. I'll probably even get a better outlook.

In this past week the only things I've done that I'm proud of are that I finished some paperwork that needed doing (a friend helped me on Saturday), and last Thursday I found a sewing project to recycle old kids' T-shirts into book bags. I sewed up about six of them, and then did a few more little sewing projects. Having something concrete to point at makes me feel very accomplished (at least for a while).

Not biking is making me hate myself. I read a couple of personals ads last night just because I enjoy torturing myself from time to time. Some of the men who advertize seem like really nice fellows. They describe themselves as professional, considerate, willing to invest in a serious relationship -- but they always mention that they do not prefer heavy women. (sigh) I guess that since I am heavy that means nobody could ever love me. I know that isn't true, but times like this it certainly feels realistic. Why would anyone love a slug? I need to move, and keep on moving, until the depression is under control and I can lose this weight. At least some of it.  I don't think it's wrong to have some padding, but it shouldn't make rolls. Being this fat is something many (if not most) people consider not just unattractive, but sinful and disgusting. I don't feel that way about my fat friends, but then I guess not everyone is quite as open minded as me.

The point is that regular biking could be the cure. Yet I'm avoiding it. Maybe part of me enjoys being ugly, and appreciates being alone and unloved. Maybe I know I'm not worthy of love anyway, and so I cannot bring myself to do what it would take to correct the outward issues that keep me from being even a candidate. I dunno. This is all just "supposing" and psychologizing myself.

All I know is that I've got to break the cycle. A week being a slug is enough. I will never reach my goal of biking all winter long if I don't practice more regularly through the summer.

I just wish the summer would realize that it is DUE, and GET HERE, and quit being 53 degrees and cloudy!

That's it.   I'm putting my order in with God right now. Summer is expected ASAP, and I'll be expecting clear skies and t-shirt weather starting tomorrow at the latest! God understands. He knows that my biking is much more important than the weather patterns he had planned, and that sunshine is a requirement for me to overcome this depression and inertia. HE made me, after all. If he hadn't wanted me to be solar-operated he shouldn't have designed me that way.

One of these days I've got to move south a little bit. Not to California or anything... Maybe just to Oregon. Maybe to Eugene. I hear the biking is great there.

First grocery run on the Mundo, with a teammate.

2010-06-29T18:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I lied about wanting to get right back on the road "the next day". Today is Tuesday, and it's the first time I've really wanted to ride after my milestone trip on Saturday. The day afterwards I swear I was still tired from the ride. My muscles were not sore in the lifted-too-much-weight kind of soreness exercise usually gives me. But they were weak in the sense of just being too damned tired to want to move at all if I could lie there on the couch instead. Plus, I got my monthly migraine, so I decided to give myself a few days off.

It was weird being that weak. I almost would have thought I was sick, except there were no other symptoms. I slept about six hours more than normally, and when I was awake I could hardly even crochet, because the hook was "too heavy". I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer a lot. I took extra vitamins and supplements to try to ensure that my body had what it needed to rebuild. That seemed to work well enough after a day or two.

So today I wanted to ride again. Actually, I wanted to ride "a little bit". But my son Adam got it in his head that we could go shopping together on our bikes. He really liked that idea, because he had some birthday money (thanks, Grandparents!) that he wanted to spend. So instead of getting away with doing just a few laps, we had to plan this major scary trip all the way to Wal-Mart together.

Wal-Mart isn't really that far from my house. It's a slightly different route than to Safeway, but about the same distance. What made this ride scary was that it was the first time I voluntarily decided to leave the house on purpose to go shopping. ON THE MUNDO. WITH A KID.   Well, the kid wasn't ON the Mundo, but still I had to be super-conscious all the time of exactly where he was and if he was doing okay.   I felt like a mama deer trying to cross the road, and constantly checking behind me to see if my little Bambi was following all right.

I think cars gave the two of us more respect than they gave me alone the other day. People are usually quite considerate of children, of course (when they're behaving), and tend to feel somewhat protective of them and their mothers who are obviously trying to take good care of them. The route we had to bike had some areas with good wide shoulders that made a very safe bike lane, and some areas with no shoulder at all, just slippery gravel on steep hills. So I tried to stay hyper-conscious of all the conditions around me, and the cars, and the cars' attitudes (if I can pretend to be so psychic as to know that), especially going up hills or at times when I was forced to "claim the road" instead of being able to grant any passing space.

By and large, I think things went well. We gave passing space when we could. We boldly rode in the whole street when we had no choice.    When hills got too steep we got off our bikes and walked them up, using the gravel shoulders. Downhill was no problem, of course, except for me being worried about my son going at such fast speeds. (He was fine, naturally.)

When cars passed us, they seemed to do so respectfully, waiting patiently for their turn, then passing safely as if we were a legitimate slow-moving vehicle. No gunning around us, or honking, or crowding, or shouting mean things out the windows. I'm sure that the fact that there were two of us gave the whole thing a sense of legitimacy, as perhaps did the fact that the Mundo (with its cargo bags) looks like a station wagon of a bike, not just a toy. And plus the fact that one of us was a sweet little kid riding a rather grown-up looking Raleigh, trying to keep up with Mama.   All good sympathy-getters. We even got quite a few approving looks, smiles, and nods. (I had time to notice those when we were waiting at intersections.)

The ride to Wal-Mart is only about 1.5 miles, but I was exhausted by the time we got there. Adam was fine. Rarin' ta go! All jazzed up, in fact, and bragging that he wasn't even tired at all, and now maybe I could let him go shopping by himself sometimes! (Yeah, right, kid. Give it a couple more years, huh?) I was panting pretty hard, myself.   Somehow, though, shopping around the store turned out to be enough of a rest that by the time we went home I felt fully able to tackle that second leg of the journey.

This whole trip was kindof like running wind sprints for me, because biking is the really hard exercise, but then walking (which I would normally consider to be a sort of exercise in itself) was the quite gentle exercise I had to use as rest time. My body had to adapt to the thought that walking was the relief, not the exercise! Even walking UPHILL!! (Oy!)

Only at one point, walking up the steepest hill, fully loaded with my heavy bike and our four bags of stuff, did I get so fully tired that we actually had to stop and just STAND and rest. But even then, we didn't have to take that break for more than about a minute or two. (Which is a good thing, because that was a busy bit of street with no shoulder and a steep ditch.) We drank some water and congratulated each other for doing so well, and reviewed our strategy, and continued home in really fine shape.

Adam began to feel tired about the time we finally made it home. HA! I was pretty exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time! I was sweating like crazy, but SO proud! Finally my Mundo has begun to earn its keep. It is now behaving as the serious vehicle I bought it to be! We didn't need the bus, we didn't need a car, we made the round-trip on our own terms and returned home victoriously bearing groceries! (And a new Lego set, and a new fish. Thanks, Grandparents!)

I feel so unbelievably proud! I feel like I just gave birth to a new phase of my life. Someday I know I'll do this trip breezing. For now, I'm just grateful to have gotten it done, however slowly.

As my son and I kept reminding each other on this trip -- "It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop." (Confucius)

I can't believe what I just did! Seven miles logged on my bike today!

2010-06-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I did a test run to see how many laps I could really do. I did ten laps! I was so proud. That's two full miles, half uphill. My son did 20, and my daughter did seven. So we are all growing! I am very proud.

About lunchtime my friend Kathy came to pick me and my son Adam up to go do a job at her house.   Adam just turned 10, and she thought he would like to earn a little money by weeding her backyard and picking up after her dogs. I went along to help him, because it is his very first paid job. I wanted him to do well, learn the ropes, and have a positive memory about earning those first dollars. It was quite a bit of work. We worked about 2 1/2 hours, and were quite tired by the time we stopped. The yard is large, though, and there will be weekly work for Adam for the rest of the year. So that was fun, if a bit exhausting on the heels of our morning marathon.

So then it was about 2:30. I decided to catch the 3pm bus to go to the library. I decided that now would be a good time to test out doing a hybrid commute, taking my bike with me on the bus and using it to get around from the transit station to the library itself.   It turned out really well! The bike was no trouble to get on and off the bike rack. Biking the 1/2 mile to the library was easy, because there were no large hills, and there were sidewalks I could ride on. I felt very proud of getting that milestone under my belt.

I had half an hour until the bus was due to come, so I stopped at a thrift store to pick up a backpack. I didn't realize before I left the house that a backpack was an absolute necessity on a bike! I needed it to carry my jacket after I got too warm, and all the stuff I would normally keep in a purse. On the Mundo I might have saddlebags, but it wouldn't fit on a bus bike rack so if I want to do the hybrid commute I must ALWAYS use my daughter's bike and I must ALWAYS wear a backpack!

Anyhoo, the bus finally came, but it said "not in service". ??????   Turns out the weekend bus schedule stops three hours earlier than the weekday schedule, and I was stranded. GOOD THING I HAD MY BIKE WITH ME!!!

So I rode home. It was about four and a half miles. This was a ride I'd been planning to make, and hoping to make, but NO WAY thought I was ready to make! But it went amazingly well!

One car honked at me, as if to say "what the hell do you think you're doing in the middle of the road, you pedestrian-on-wheels?" But I didn't let him get to me. I knew that I knew the road laws a bit better than he did, so I forgave him.    Other people passed me, sometimes inappropriately close to me or to other cars as they gunned it to make it around in a no-passing-zone, but by and large people dealt with it relatively well. I think some people were even somewhat kind about it. Maybe I'm imagining things, but I think some might have been smiling to see this fat, middle-aged woman doing her damnedest to get some exercise and accomplish something positive. And, incidentally, get home from the library.

I walked in the door at 5:45. On the bus I would have gotten home by about 6pm! I actually BEAT the bus's time! I can't believe it!

I was very, very tired. I had had a long day of what for me is relatively strenuous activity. But (here's the really weird part) I was less exhausted after this whole adventure than I had been after that very first two-mile ride to the Castle Park! That day (practically my first day riding) I had felt totally weak and noodley afterwards. This time I felt very very hot, breathing very hard, very tired, but NOT exhausted to the point of weakness or dizziness! I have made such progress it's unbelievable!

All this in barely six weeks. What an amazing difference! I wouldn't have believed it possible!

Now I have to step up my expectations for myself! I think I can maybe take a trip down to Safeway on my Mundo now. I don't really need to buy anything, but I want to see if I can make it. I want to see how long it will take me. I may give myself a day or two to recuperate. God only knows how sore I might be tomorrow, or what other side effects there might be. But as soon as I feel normal (tomorrow if that's even possible) I will take that Safeway trip, and mark it off my achievement milestone list!

Safeway is about two miles from my house, with at least half a mile as a steep uphill climb. We'll see if I'm up to the challenge! Worst case scenario, I know I can walk.

biking with a friend

2010-06-24T00:45:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was pretty good. The weather was nice for the first time in what seemed like forever. I went out on my bike at least five different times. I had all the windows and doors open to let the beautiful fresh breezes in the house. After a ride I would be very grateful of that coolness! We don't have air conditioning (and 50 weeks of the year don't need it anyway), but indoors it was cooler than outdoors in the sun.

Strangely, after a while indoors I would actually start to feel cold. Put-on-your-coat cold. The same kind of cold I'd been suffering for months with the gray drizzly days. So to warm up I went outside again and rode a few laps, to get the blood moving again. It worked pretty well, and amounted to more total laps logged yesterday than ever before.

In the evening my next-door neighbor came over and asked if I wanted to go walking. Naturally I told her that I dislike walking, but she'd be welcome to borrow my daughter's bike and we could bike around a bit together. That was fun. She was exactly where I was a month ago -- hardly able to control the bike, unused to the hand brakes, very slow and unsure. I was very proud to see the comparison reminder of how far I'd come. I showed her a few tips that had helped me, and felt like a real mentor. She looked like she was having fun, and I certainly had fun too. I hope she goes biking with me again sometime.

Wednesday was another beautiful, warm day. Somehow, though, when I got on my bike I felt absolutely no strength or energy. It was all I could do to pedal slowly in low gear on the flats! I did only three or four mini-laps back and forth on the flats, and called it a day because I was just weak as a kitten. I don't know why. I'm sure I'm not sick. My last ride of Tuesday was MUCH stronger than my first ride Wednesday. What's up with that?

So I beefed up my nutrition by making sure I ate plenty of leafy greens, and even more supplements, and other whole foods. And I took a good nap in the afternoon.

I hope tomorrow I have my strength back. I miss riding.

leg cramps

2010-06-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke with a terribly painful cramp in my right calf. Why does that sort of thing happen?

I raised the leg and gently shook it out until the severe pain subsided, but the leg has felt tight and painful all day. My other leg is now starting to feel rather tight as well.

I don't know why my muscles are cramping up. I didn't think I did more than I should yesterday. Maybe my legs are objecting to the heels that I wore to church? I only wore them for about five hours, and most of that was sitting down. (Church, then lunch with a friend -- I don't go to church for five hours straight!) Still, I haven't worn heels of any kind in quite a while. Maybe somehow that did it.

Or maybe I'm short of some nutrient? I heard once that leg cramps were connected to potassium somehow. I do take multivitamins every day, though, so I'd think I was covered. BTW, I also take digestive enzymes, probiotics, and Omega-3 oil capsules every day. I really thought I had nutritional supplements covered.

I wish I had a masseuse to gently work out these kinks for me. I can't seem to do it for myself.

Now's the time I need to focus on meditation to relax, and gentle stretching to help avoid re-injury.

Being a carnival ride

2010-06-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

This is a new, fun phase.

For this past week I have been cycling almost every day, usually in the late afternoon. (I'm busy playing Farmville in the mornings!) Lots of kids hang around outside about that time, and I've taken to offering rides to all of them, two at a time. It's good training for learning to ride with extra weight. I'm becoming very popular.

I have a simple route I take the kids on, mostly along the flat part of the parking lot, but also a bit up the hill and with an optional speed bump. I could avoid the speed bump, but sometimes the kids ask for me to go over it, for the thrill. Generally, they want me to ride a lot slower than I might alone. It's pretty scary being the passenger, I guess.

The exercise is very good for me. I ride until I'm panting like a dog and my entire body feels all weak and noodley. The kids are good motivators. They beg for more all the time, and always want a little more than I think I can give them. To me, making them happy is way more motivating than having a mean, screaming drill sargent of a coach would be.

After my last ride with the kiddies, I take one or two victory laps just by myself. Riding the bike all the way up around the block (hill) without extra weight suddenly feels like I'm just flying! I usually can get two or three more laps in, after I really thought I had nothing left. The feeling of freedom and speed is so invigorating!

Then I come in, collapse on the couch, and beg my kids to bring me about a quart of water to guzzle while I recuperate for half an hour. This training really makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something significant with my body.

Oh, and btw, today I did this training AFTER having spent the last two hours shopping. Last month, just the shopping would have been enough to wear me out! So things are definitely improving as far as my endurance and strength.

Yay, me!

Wake-up biking is becoming a routine

2010-06-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

Once again I woke this morning thinking of hopping straight onto my bike. I can't get over how different this is from my normal sluggish routine. Actually, I still feel sluggish, bleary-eyed, unwashed and groggy.   But now, barely 20 minutes after waking up this morning, I can say I've accomplished my first mile of the day on my bike.

I love the exhilaration of freedom, speed, and motion I get to experience even though my body still feels heavy with sleep. Pedalling up the hill, mastering the granny gears, I feel proud that my body is growing. Growing in the right way. I don't need any more growing acres of fat all around me. I'm proud to be growing muscles.

I can tell they're growing because other times when I've done my wake-up ride I only did a couple of laps. This time I knocked out a full five without too much strain. The first few laps I relied more on the higher gears, and only had to gear down for the topmost part of the steep hill. The last couple laps I found I needed to stay in middle and lower gears, and barely was able to gear down enough to make it to the top on that last one. But I DID make it. I guess that's a decent guide for growth -- do as much as I comfortably can, then do as much as I uncomfortably but not painfully can, then stop when things start to get painful. But each day I am naturally pushing it to that threshold of pain. It comes far too early still. I want to be able to ride my bike for an HOUR.   But I'm grateful at least to know that progress is happening.

I want to take the bike out for another ride later today.  But I do have errands to run. The garden needs tending. I have to go to the bank. Gotta pay some bills. It could be that by the time I get done doing all that I'll be too exhausted to ride. But it would be good to get at least one more mile in before bedtime. I'll definitely shoot for that.

Up to 6 laps now.

2010-06-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

Today I phoned Yuba Mundo to find out about my double kickstand. Apparently, they are on back order and will arrive and be shipped on the first of July.

Okay. I can be patient. As long as I know it's on its way, I don't need to squawk. The double kickstand will be very nice, but for now the single kickstand is actually doing fine. It's the strongest, most stable kickstand I've ever seen. The double will be especially nice, though, because I tend to always dismount on the right side, and the single kickstand is on the left, so that doesn't work very well. I'll be able to use the double from either side. Yay!

This morning I practiced some more at about 5:30am. I'm liking these early-morning rides. Makes me feel like I'm getting my day off to a good start, even if it's only a couple of laps. About lunchtime when I took my second ride, I invited my son and three of the neighborhood kids to take turns riding on the back. My son was nearly over the nervousness he felt in learning to trust me to lean into turns. I needed to go quite slowly for him, but he knows I'm strong and reliable and would never let him get hurt. The two boys I invited weren't so brave. One would not get on at all, and the other wanted off after I made the first turn. I thought it was kindof funny that the bravest neighbor child to ride with me was the youngest, and she was a girl. Big brave boys couldn't muster up the trust, but little Gabrielle was able to overcome her initial nervousness enough to recognize the fun in it. We rode around several times, until I became too tired.

Having passengers definitely does make going up the hill slower, and more painful on the still-growing thigh muscles. I'm proud of my progress, though. Doing things that are difficult every day is helping me to get better and better at things that used to be difficult. For example, at first I could barely ride up the hill at all. now I can get up it in second gear, if I'm alone. With passengers I'm back to going granny-slow. But at least I can make it! I do need more practice, though, learning to deal with the different balance issues when carrying passengers or cargo.

Yesterday I was able to do six laps around the parking lot without stopping or reversing. My goal is to do ten, and to do at least five of those laps while loaded with about 50-70lbs of cargo. If I can do that, I know I have the strength to make it to my local grocery store (2 miles away) and back.

I'd like to be able to continue to build my strength and endurance until a five mile trip seems relatively easy. That would be 25 laps. That might get kinda boring, but I might be able to do it. I feel so proud of my progress each time that it doesn't seem boring yet. We'll keep an eye on that and see how it goes.

Why am I blogging at 5:30 in the morning?

2010-06-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

Waking up at 4am is not unusual for me. It's the time of the morning that my Kitty always decides she's had enough of exploring the neighborhood for the night, and wants back in. So she meows at my window, and I dutifully go open the door so she won't just stay out there throwing a fit.   Normally it's not hard for me to get back to sleep because I am a mother, and if you don't learn to take your sleep in broken pieces and be damned grateful for it, you NEVER survive as a mother. But this morning something unusual happened.

As I lay there in bed trying to get comfortable my thoughts wouldn't leave me alone. All I could think about was the bike! I dreamt about it. I envision myself juryrigging laundry baskets to the side with bungee cords and using it to take out the garbage to the dumpster at the top of the apartment complex. Heck, I envision setting up a BUSINESS where I haul everyone's garbage in the whole complex up to the dumpster for them daily. (Some of these folks have got quite a trek to haul.)

I lay in bed envisioning the feeling of being on my bike. I remember the power and speed and exhilaration. I remember how FUN it is! Going from being a totally sedentary slug to finally having the ability to zip around like a little kid is intoxicating.

Nothing else would do. I slipped on a white sweater, found my bright yellow Crocs, and went for a midnight ride in my nightgown. (Don't be shocked, my nightgown looks like a regular jersey-knit dress, and it's black, not all covered in fluffy lambs.)

No helmet. No reflective safety vest. No fancy shoes or shorts or jersey. Just me and the freedom of the morning chorus of birds waking up, and the silence of a world where the drunks have long since gone to bed and good hardworking souls have not yet emerged from their well-deserved slumber.   I had the world to myself.

I knew I was safe, because I was only doing laps around the parking lot. Not a lot of traffic out there even during the busy time of day, let alone 4am. Still, I chose the white sweater as a slight concession to the fact that I might have come across a car, and didn't want to be totally invisible.

There was a very light misting of that sort of rain that seems more like a buss on the cheek than a shower from above.    My glasses hardly even got wet, but I did decide that a bit of Rain-X would not be a bad idea for next time.

I don't know what's come over me. I am NOT the sort of person who enjoys exercise, or would normally venture out in such conditions. If I thought about it I would have to decide I was incredibly silly. But this morning it felt like the most natural thing to go enjoy a refreshing and relaxing ride to help me get over that restless feeling.   ME?   Exercising to get over feeling restless?   What strange parallel universe have I unwittingly slipped into here?

It felt so good, though!   Last night I put a gel seat cover on the bike to help me get over that bruising hardness, and a part of me just couldn't wait to try it out (though it was too late at the time last night). Some residual soreness is still there, but it DEFINITELY made a difference. I feel confident that I'll be able to take the bike out for several more short rides today without risking too much soreness for tomorrow.

I'm taking multiple brief rides every day now. Only a mile or two each time. I don't have a specific regimen, I just have a need to get out on my bike and learn to get better and better at it. Five laps around my parking lot is one mile, and that's what I did this morning. I'm practicing going all the way around now instead of back and forth across the relatively flat lower part. I'm building up my endurance already, so the hill-climbing doesn't feel so exhausting as it used to. I'm starting to think I've nearly outgrown the parking lot challenge, and will be back riding on the main road again very soon. Maybe today.   We'll see.

IT CAME!!!

2010-06-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

My bike finally arrived! It is assembled! It is HERE!!!

Once again, feeling disappointed in Silverdale Cyclery because I had to phone them to find out about it, because apparently they don't mean it when they say they'll call you and let you know when your bike will be done. Also still feeling disappointed in Yuba Mundo because they forgot to ship my double kickstand.

But all squabbling aside, I am THRILLED to have my new bike! It is so beautiful!

The blue paint is so shiny and fresh and clean and unscratched. The carry bags are perfect and unstained and nothing nasty has been spilled in them yet. Everything is in alignment, and works well. It's moments like this that we have to remember. That new-car-smell moment, when everything is still romantic and the smell of cheeseburgers hasn't gotten into the upholstery yet.

My friend Judy helped me get the bike home today. She's a very kind woman, and helps me out a lot here and there. The bike is a little longer than a standard bike, and barely fit into her van even with both bench seats removed.    Plus, I was very happy to have the help of John from the cycle shop who loaded it in for us. GOOD GRIEF, that bike weighs a TON!!!

Okay, really it only weighs about 80 pounds.   But still, for a bike that seems incredibly heavy. I can barely lift it, and I'm a fairly strong woman used to carrying six bags of groceries home in each arm.

The amazing thing is how it rides. I've spent a few weeks getting used to riding a Raleigh comfort bike. This bike was hardly any more difficult to ride! Up and down the same hills in my apartment complex's parking lot I was able to gear down enough to make it up to the very top with no trouble. The disc brakes feel very reliable and solid. Maybe shaving off every last ounce of bicycle weight is important if you're touring cross-country or racing, but for simply getting from A to B, this bike felt almost indistinguishable to me from the comfort bike.

What IS different is trying to put that sucker away. That extra length makes it hard to turn around in small spaces, like say, an apartment stairwell. Chaining it up under the stairs, then, is an interesting maneuver that begins with me backing the bike into place. There's just no way I could get it out otherwise.

Also, the "bread rack" on the front (which is what they call the carrying shelf) kinda weirds me out a little, just because it is attached to the frame instead of the turning handles.    Part of me expects it to behave like a classic bicycle basket, and move whenever I steer. I'm going to have to get used to feeling as if I'm driving out from under it all the time.

Finally is the issue of the "wings" on the side, which carry stuff.    Normal bikes are as slim as a razor blade.   This bike has a certain tendency to bump into stuff if you're not careful, and you can't ride it through extremely narrow places, like the fence gate that sneaks from my apartment complex to the schoolground next door. I guess that's one shortcut I just won't be taking.

But for normal driving, this bike is certainly everything I hoped it would be. I think I'll even feel more confident taking it into traffic than I did biking with the Raleigh. With at least the potential to haul major goods in the trunk, I feel like I deserve a piece of the road as much as the next station wagon.

I could hardly get enough of riding today! I took the bike out four different times, each time riding until my legs were on fire and my lungs were giving out. I just didn't want to stop! I took my son for a ride on the rumble seat, and he said it was a lot of fun too. (Once he got over the fear of trusting me to steer and feeling the bike leaning into corners.)

One thing, though... I miss the banana seats of the bikes of my childhood. My butt is all sore today, and I have a hard time believing that these triangular bike seats aren't getting a little more intimate than they deserve. I'm always wanting to scootch back on the seat and get a wider place to distribute my weight across.   I want a seat like a tractor, man. I hate feeling afraid that I'm going to end up with bruises in places I can't even see without a mirror.

Still, these are minor grumbles. I love my new bike! I can hardly wait to go out on it every day.   I hope to take it on its first ride to Safeway within two weeks.

Delays, delays...

2010-06-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

I'm getting really tired waiting for my bike to arrive.

I ordered the Yuba Mundo on May 20. It was shipped on May 27. It arrived by FedEx at Silverdale cyclery on June 2 (my sister's birthday). Yet I STILL do not have my bike, because it was shipped without a certain bracket, and is therefore still not completed. Silverdale Cyclery says they are waiting for the replacement bracket, and will inform me as soon as it arrives and the bike is complete. But my confidence in them is sinking, because they did not phone me at first when the bike arrived or when they discovered there would be a delay. I've had to call them.

So right now I'm disappointed in Yuba Mundo. They shipped to me much slower than they said they would, and when the order finally did ship it was not correct. I'm a little disappointed in Silverdale Cyclery too, but at least I have the ability to pick up a phone and get the info I need. I cannot hop in my car and drive down to the Yuba store and get the missing part that I need.

I feel so frustrated today.

All this time I've been riding my daughter's bike, that I blogged about in my second entry. That bike is very nice. My son has even enjoyed riding it, when we lowered the seat for him. It is a lot of fun, and easy to ride. I've gotten used to shifting the gears and using the hand brakes. I've bought all kinds of antlers for the handlebars like a rear-view mirror and a computer that tells me how fast I'm going, etc. I'm proud of the fact that I've got that bike pretty tricked out.

But I SO want my own bike to arrive! I'm itching to test drive it. I want to see if it handles as smoothly and is as fun as the other bike. I want to know how much difference it makes to pedal around the extra weight of its beefy frame. Most of all, I want to give neighborhood kids rides on the rumble seat, because that would be lots of fun.

(cue Inigo Montoya voice)
"I hate waiting."

Magical Day

2010-06-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

Today is my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday, Eve! (Isn't that a beautiful name? She's such a great gal.)

Now for catching up.

Yesterday was not up to the standards set by the day before. Migraines run in my family, and both my nine year old son and I had one yesterday. What a rotten trick to play on a little kid that he should have to suffer migraines! It kept him out of school and on the couch all day. He's as cheerful and sweet as a kid can be, but nobody's at their best when they're in pain. He doesn't have a prescription yet. I need to get him to the doctor. This is the second or third time this year he's had a headache bad enough to miss school. I hoped each event was just something isolated, or maybe even a ploy to play hooky, but now I'm convinced. He needs help.

I was in some pain too. My migraine wasn't too severe. I took just half a pill to deal with it, and I'm used to the side effects the Imitrex gives me. It makes me sleepy, and cold all over, and sometimes makes my muscles all feel achey.

Achey muscles... Hmmmm... and what had I been doing the day before? First day of the Triple Challenge that was, and though I tried to start slowly, I think there was some rust on the hinges and they're making noise about it! So I don't know how much of my body aches were due to the medicine side effects, and how much were due to ripping out the weeds in the sidewalk of my body and leaving all those micro-tears we all know so well.

Besides all that, the weather yesterday was back to cold and pouring rain. If I hadn't made level 20 in FarmVille the day would have been a total waste.

So last night I did my visualization thing again. As I listened to the rain splattering against the window, I thought about how beautiful the sun looks as it sparkles off the glistening rain-wet world. I smelled the extra-fresh fragrance of all the plants breathing in new life and exhaling pure heavenly oxygen. I listened to the sound of children shrieking with laughter as they played outside and rode their bikes, and got scolded by their folks for getting their pants wet by rolling in the still-damp grass. I pictured myself riding around, feeling the miraculous sensation of warm sunshine and cool air and speed and freedom and relaxation all at once. I felt my skills increasing, riding around and around the apartments, doing figure eights, learning to use gears and hand brakes, playing games with the kids, and not battling with cars at all. I pictured all this happening by 11am, so the day would get off to a good early start.

That did not happen.

I was off by almost three hours.

It is now 2pm, the sun is breaking through what was cold rain this morning, and the sky is sparkling like sapphires. I'm grabbing my bike now to go find some kids to play with!

Seeya!

I have magic powers!

2010-05-31T16:55:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe the turnaround since yesterday! I went from hardly being able to feel any worse, to feeling absolutely wonderful today! If I didn't know better, I'd think I was having a manic-depressive mood swing.

Last night after I dragged my achey cold resentful body into bed I way lying there trying to imagine what today would look like if everything went perfectly. I envisioned the sunshine warm on my skin, and the refreshing light breeze bringing the perfume of mown grass. I felt myself waking up and feeling energized and enthusiastic for the day. I saw myself doing laundry and cleaning floors and making the house nice. I felt my tummy waiting patiently until after I'd done my Triple Challenge exercises before growling at me for breakfast. I saw myself dealing with any headaches as minor speedbumps instead of tankstopping roadblocks. I pictured myself moderating the time I spent playing video games, keeping it down to a sensible couple of hours instead of an all-day marathon. I lived in the feeling of riding my daughter's bike all around and around the complex, playing with kids and having a wonderful time, while getting only pleasantly tired.

And that's exactly what has happened today!

Somebody show me a Red Sea. Watch me part it for you. :)

Crappy Sunday.

2010-05-31T00:59:00.000-07:00

Sunday. More cold, cloudy weather and rain. I'm writing this at about 1am, so although the calendar has flipped, it ain't officially Monday yet for me.

I woke up this morning with a very bad headache. I took a caffeine pill and three extra-strength tylenol, and within an hour or so it went away. But the day never really got better for me.

I think I'm hormonal. I'm feeling achey all over and moody and depressed and oversensitive. Everything hurts. I want to do nothing but play video games on the computer, or take hot baths. I'm terribly cold, even indoors under blankets. I feel all swollen. I feel like crud. I hope the feeling passes soon, but I'm afraid I might be in for several more days of this. Maybe all next week, depending.

Tomorrow is Monday. My due date to start the 200 Squats Challenge program. I've decided to go ahead and do the Triple Challenge of pushups and crunches too, to help tone my whole body. I'm going to do my exercises first thing in the morning, before eating breakfast or doing any video games. Then if I sit around like a lump the rest of the day at least I can say I did something.

If I wake up with a horrible headache again, though, all bets are off. I'll try to overcome it, but a girl's only got so much strength at once, you know? But I do promise I will do my best.

Oh, god, some sunshine would really come in handy now.

cold day/indoor training

2010-05-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

The weather is unseasonably cold and dreary for May. It's very discouraging. I'm feeling a little depressed for the past couple of days, and when I'm shivering indoors under a blanket I just don't think I can face going outside to learn cycling. I hate being cold.

But I HAVE to train! I can't keep letting cold weather stop me, or else I'll never build up the necessary muscles and endurance by fall.

A friend gave me the advice that what a cyclist really needs is good cardiovascular endurance, and strong leg muscles. So she said I should do squats to build up my legs, and perhaps walking for the other. Walking outside in the cold is not much more attractive than biking in it, but maybe at least the squats will keep me from stagnating totally.

I knew a website once that gave a training schedule for 200 squats in a row. (Also, there was 100 pushups and 200 crunches sites, if you wanted the whole trifecta.) I think I'll look up that old information and get back on that training schedule. I only made it a couple weeks last time, but then last time I didn't have any actual goal that I was working towards such as triumphantly riding my bike as if it were a car!

Of course, I'm starting off pretty slowly. This morning I was able to do a grand total of ten squats in a row before my legs felt too painful to continue. But that's okay on this program. Ya gotta start where you are, and there are baby steps built in to the 200 Squats website. http://www.twohundredsquats.com/

Training on a chancy day

2010-05-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

The weather this spring is unusually cold and rainy. Normally things warm up by Mother's Day, but this year seems to be sulking.

The chilly rain and unwelcoming gray clouds hung over this morning like a bitter ex-lover out to spread gossip. The thought of exposing my clumsiness to that scornful eye was more than I could bear. I swore I would learn to bike in the rain this fall, but I'm counting on learning to bike while the sun smiles.

I was afraid I'd miss my opportunity to train today. I count my shopping expedition yesterday as almost being an adequate substitute for bike training just because it is physically tiring. I know it isn't the same thing, but at least it meant I accomplished something important in that day I did not bike. Still, I would feel very bad if I missed two days in a row. I know I need to be very serious about training myself diligently if I'm going to grow fast enough to make this goal work this year.

This evening about 5pm we suddenly had a sun break. I was puttering away at the computer (probably playing Farmville, though I don't understand that game yet) when a sudden brightness out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I was amazed to see that the sky had miraculously cleared up into a beautiful blue, with puffy white cotton-ball clouds playing merrily together. I swear five minutes previously it had been raining like seven year old boys fighting over a toy, and suddenly all was beautiful again! I grabbed the bike and dove for the opportunity.

Today I chose to go down Central Valley Rd. I have a friend who lives about a mile and a half down the road. I thought I might make it as far as her house. I was wrong. Even though the whole first mileof the ride was a straight shot downhill, Somehow it still left me breathless. There's something exhausting about having your nerves on high alert. Rush hour traffic coming within a few feet of me while I tried not to wobble too badly on the side of the road was enough to do it for me. Sometimes I had to ride on the gravel shoulder, which wouldn't be so bad if it didn't slope so irregularly down into the drainage ditch. I was constantly afraid of just plain falling over and either getting soaked or getting flattened by a car.

Luckily none of that happened. But after about a mile I knew I'd had enough and I turned around to go home without making it to my friend's house.

The ride home was much slower and more difficult than the ride downhill, of course. The shoulder on that side of the road was frequently much narrower AND more treacherous should I slip, so I was forced to ride in the actual road. Though I tried to keep close to the right edge, I was still terrified of the cars, which didn't seem to slow down one bit for me, though they were kind enough to whizz past on the left-hand edge of "our" lane. It scared me much worse when another car was coming from the other direction at the same time, leaving absolutely no emergency "swerve" room.

I was tired. I had to gear down because trying to ride uphill in top gear just isn't feasible. But lower gears don't make a lot of sense to me either. I think I need to take my bike back to the shop and have them double-check that things are all working as they should, because I swear it just doesn't feel like it's right. In lowest gear sometimes it's hard for me to pedal hard and fast enough to actually engage with the bike. I feel like I'm just spinning the pedals around with no resistance (and no propulsion) whatsoever. In higher gears I feel like I'm working far harder than I ought to be, for the amount of forward movement I'm achieving. I could almost walk as briskly as that.

Come to think of it, I have a similar disengaged feeling when I'm coasting along. I guess I might be travelling at about 10mph, which doesn't seem very fast. But even in top gear I cannot spin my pedals fast enough to feel any resistance, and gain any extra speed. I feel like such a turtle. There's something just not right about that. It bugs me that I have to be such a bump in the road to the cars. I'd like to be going at some kind of approximation of a serious vehicle.

God, I'm such a joke. Not even a very funny one.

I managed to pedal my bike almost all the way home, turtle speeds or no. My thighs burned with lactic acid, and I would gear down even farther or pedal a bit slower, until I swear I could just as soon scoot up the hill with foot power instead of pedal power. There are a couple of blocks with paved sidewalks, which I gratefully used, feeling MUCH safer from the cars. Also I ditched the road and took a detour through a school ground when I got close to home. It saved me that last "steep" bit of the road leading up to my apartments. I put steep in quotes, because until I was on a bike that is nothing like what I would have called a steep hill before.

Anyway, it's done. Got home shakey and trembly and panting again. Took a shower and napped for an hour and woke up still feeling exhausted and out of breath and barely able to cook dinner for my kids.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I'd have thought an hour nap and another hour puttering around would have been enough to rest me up from my exertions. I need better recovery time than this.

Obviously I still have much to learn.

Shopping on the bus

2010-05-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

Today I went shopping for my weekly groceries.   For the time being, that still means riding the bus. Someday I hope to do this by bike, but just so we're clear why I would choose that, here's what using the bus entails for me:

First I have to remember to catch it. I must leave the house on the hour, not five minutes past, if I want to catch the bus going into Bremerton. The bus arrives somewhere between 9 and 12 after the hour, and it takes me about seven or eight minutes to walk to the bus stop. I am not in shape enough to jog any part of that distance. I cannot jog more than about twenty feet. If I miss the bus for any reason, I must wait another hour for the next one.

Then I must remember to bring with me all my stuff. This shouldn't be a big deal, and it's nobody's fault but my own when I mess it up, but sometimes I miss the bus because I'm running around like crazy at the last minute trying to remember where I left my wallet, my cell phone, my shopping bags, my shoes, my sweater, my umbrella, etc.   Yes, if I were to organize all that ahead of time I would be much better off. But I'm scatterbrained and often don't think about these things until I actually need them. But by then it's too late because if it's time to leave, then looking for them will probably make me late. And once again, I'm left waiting another hour before I can catch the next bus.

I walk to the bus stop toting a granny cart because I intend to bring home at least 6-8 very full and heavy bags of groceries, and there's no way in the world I could possibly carry that much. I always feel awkward and stupid doing this, because I'm just about the only person I know who does. Apparently most people use the bus just to get from place to place, not to carry stuff on. Commuters, like college kids and park-and-ride employees, use the bus. Not family breadwinners. I guess the assumption is that buses are there to serve those poor deprived families with only one car, instead of the standard two. Naturally MOST people do their shopping by car. But since I can't, I'm left dragging the granny cart.

The granny cart just barely fits into the "special needs" section at the front of the bus. It actually sticks out into the aisle by about two or three inches, but generally people can walk around it pretty well. Unless the bus is very crowded. The cart takes up an extra seat worth of space, too. Sometimes I get dirty looks for imposing on everyone that way, but really it's my only option.

I fold the cart neatly and can stuff it underneath a standard grocery store cart, to keep it stowed while I shop. I know I can fit almost as much in my granny cart as I can in the top section of the store shopping cart.

At the checkout I carefully explain to the cashier that I need my bags to fill this cart (I unfold it to show her) and I need them packed by DENSITY more than anything else. Don't pack each bag with light things on top, because I'll have three layers of bags in the cart and at least two of the layers are going to get squished. Sometimes they get it. Sometimes I have to take some time aside to re-pack everything.

It's very important for me to keep one eye on the clock. I must finish my shopping in one single hour, or once again I'll miss the bus home and have to wait another hour for the next one. Long lines and re-packing can be killers here.

I get back on the bus. Sometimes I ask for the wheelchair ramp to be lowered for me, if my basket is extra-full of very heavy items like gallons of soy milk. (I don't drink regular milk, but I do love Silk brand soy milk! We go through about four or five gallons a week, easily.) I maneuver the cart into position, ignoring anyone who treats me like I don't deserve to be there, providing for my family. I apologize if I roll over anyone's toe.

I walk home from the bus stop, pushing the full cart. I'm tired by this point, and the walk probably takes me ten or twelve minutes.

Then I let my daughter put away the groceries while I collapse on the couch to watch Hulu.

The thing that's going to be great about using the Mundo for shopping is that I'll be able to get to the store in probably about the same amount of time (1/2 hour) because I won't be slowed down by walking, waiting for the bus, stopping at various other people's bus stops, or taking the roundabout route the bus takes.
Also, I'll have the MAJOR bonus of being able to leave the house whenever the hell I please, instead of waiting for someone else's timetable. (This could be a real advantage when it's one of those "partly sunny with intermittent showers" days we're so famous for around here.)
And I can shop as long as I please, and again NOT worry whether I'm going to make it to the bus's schedule.
And I won't have to panic if there's a bit of a line.
And I can be more of a sweetie at checkout, because my bags will all be NEXT to each other instead of on top of each other, so I don't have to give the poor bagger any grief about doing things my special way.
And nobody is going to give me looks for taking up space, or bumping them at all.
And I won't have to pay the fare, or worry about transfers.
And I won't have to feel like a granny, using wheelchair ramps and trundling by the side of the road.

On my Yuba Mundo (once I get the strength to use it) I will be free. I'll be independent again.

It can't happen too soon to suit me.

Bicycling Affects Appetite

2010-05-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

Something I'm noticing now: I haven't been hungry since my bike ride.

I know to all of you that sounds like no big deal, since that's hardly much over two hours. But you don't know what it's like for me. I feel hungry almost ALL THE TIME. I graze constantly, every hour or so. Sometimes they are little snacks, but just as likely they are full-sized meals. That's why I weigh 260 pounds to begin with.

When I came in all shakey and sweaty, my first thought was NOT "Gee, I could really go for a hamburger now!"

Water, yes. Rest, definitely. Food? No thank you.

This is new for me. Especially on a day when I'm feeling depressed.

I'm not sure when I ate last, but I think it was about 11am. So that would be almost five hours now that I've gone without thinking of food.

Who'd have thought that cycling was an appetite suppressant?

I think I'm ready to go eat a salad now.

First Ride to Castle Park

2010-05-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm back. It is now 2:00, so that round-trip took me half an hour.

I feel shakey all over. I feel very sweaty. My legs are trembly. I'm breathing hard.   But I made it! That feels good. :)

It's amazing how different the perceptions are on a bicycle compared to in a car. I thought the long slope on Fairgrounds Rd would be the challenge. It turns out that even though that stretch of road is longer, the slope is gentle enough that I was able to ride up the whole thing in second gear. I wasn't going super fast, but I was going about twice as fast as a group of pedestrians I passed.   Though it felt like very noticeable exertion, it was relatively sustainable for me. I am very proud of that. It was better than I expected. But that was almost the last bit of the ride. Let me tell you how it started out.

What turned out to be the strenuous leg of the journey was the bit getting out of my apartments and up TO Fairgrounds Rd. The slope there is apparently much steeper, though I never noticed that fact before, in my car. On that bit of the ride I thought my legs would give out totally, and I was breathing so hard I thought I might have to get off and walk. I was glad when I came to the stoplight, so I had an excuse to get off my bike and wait for the crosswalk. I walked the bike across the intersection like a pedestrian, feeling utterly ashamed of my woeful lack of physical fitness.

From that intersection to the park was all a downhill coast. I tried gearing up to the maximum on my daughter's 21-speed, but I wasn't capable of pedalling fast enough to even make a difference. I felt like I was going ridiculously slowly compared to the cars, but simply could not go any faster.   So gravity gets all the credit for that part of the ride.

I had a bit of confusion when I came to the four-way stop sign, turning left off of Fairgrounds Rd onto Stampede Blvd where the Castle Park is located. Just my luck, though traffic in general was pretty light at this hour, at that very moment four other vehicles all converged on that intersection.   I didn't know if I should get off and walk across the two streets like a pedestrian again, or blaze on through that left-hand turn like a car.   Looking back, I'm pretty sure I would have been safer walking it. As it stands, though, I did ride through, feeling weird about making the left-hand-turn hand signal by hand. I felt invisible. I felt conspicuously stupid at the same time. But nobody seemed about to have an accident over my awkwardness, so it all turned out okay.

I wonder if anybody watching me was thinking to themselves that this was probably the first time a fat chick like me had ever ridden a bike. They would be forgiven for whatever mental sneering they felt necessary to do.

As I pedalled down the level stretch of road on Stampede Blvd I kept to the shoulder. It was paved and plenty broad in that section, so it almost felt like a bicycle lane. I know bikes aren't supposed to ride on sidewalks, but the shoulder of a street doesn't count as a sidewalk, does it?   Anyway, I couldn't bear the mental pressure of fearing a driver behind me might be pissed off if I pretended to be a real vehicle fully deserving of road rights. I know cyclists ARE real road vehicles, but at this point I sure don't feel real. I feel like a stupid oversized kid putting on airs.

Once at the park I allowed myself to rest for about ten minutes. I swung on the swings, giving my arms a little exercise. I went down the big wavy slide. I listened to kids playing. I sat for a while under the picnic shelter, waiting for my legs not to feel so trembly and for my breathing not to sound so labored. Anyone watching me could have guessed I'd trekked an hour-long slog to deserve to be so in need of rest. It made me feel both proud and ashamed to realize I'd gotten there in barely six or seven minutes.

So, anyway, that's my first milestone fully conquered! It wasn't easy. It wasn't pretty. I still don't know how to dismount properly without looking like a total goober. But I do feel proud of having made the effort. And maybe ... yeah .. I guess I do feel a little less depressed too.

Maybe now I'll go do some housework. :)

Let's see if biking can cure mild depression.

2010-05-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today I am depressed.

Depression is something I've struggled with since childhood. Some of it has to do with the fact that in certain ways my life really does suck, and therefore being unhappy about it is a sane and rational response. Some of it, however, is purely chemical and comes upon me even when everything in my life is relatively peaceful and going well.

Yesterday I felt totally happy about taking my first bicycle ride. Today I feel sluggish and sad and unable to motivate myself at all. I'm sure this is an example of the "purely chemical" sort of depression, because I can't think of anything awful I'm facing right now.

Normally a day like this would see me lying around the house in my pajamas, socializing or playing games on the computer, watching movies, and eating a whole hell of a lot. Today, though, I'm going to try something different. I'm going to go for a bike ride.

I don't know whether it will help. But I felt so charged up yesterday after my ride I'm hoping it could make a difference today. I need something to raise my energy. I feel like such a slug.

The weather today is pretty nice. Cool but not cold. Partly sunny. At the very least, getting some fresh air should be good for me.

My first riding milestone goal is to make it to the Castle Park and back. That is a two-mile round trip, on a gentle slope. I'll have to deal with traffic, but hopefully not too much. I'm scared to do this, but determined to face it. I know I must sound like such an incredible wimp to everyone now, but hey -- we all gotta start where we are with what we've got, right?

So here I go. Wish me luck.

First ride in 30 years

2010-05-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

I just took my first ride on my daughter’s new bike.

Omg, omg, O. M. G!!!

That was SO MUCH FUN!!!

YAHHHHH!!!

I haven’t had that much fun in 30 years!

My head is still dizzy from the feeling of speed and power and balance and wind rushing past my face and tingly fingertips and figuring out how to use hand brakes and gears and allkindsastufflikethatthere.

YIKES!!

I only rode around my apartment complex a few times. The whole ride was only 15 minutes. Barely half a mile, but KOWABUNGA! THAT FELT GOOD!

I'm all one big happy tingly smile now. :)

Oh, I forgot to keep y'all up to speed. For myself I decided to buy a Yuba Mundo. For my daughter I decided to get a Raleigh Route 4.0 which we just purchased today. It's a comfort hybrid with extra suspension in the seat and handlebars. Even going over my apartments' many killer speedbumps felt easy as pie with this thing! And believe it or not, I even have a considerable little hill to get used to, just circling the complex. I got a chance to try out how it felt to shift gears from top to bottom.

I circled the complex a few times, and a little neighbor child ran with me a lot of the way, and then got her scooter and we circled the block together once or twice. (The energy of children is amazing!)

Call me a wimp if you must, but after that first 15 minutes of exercise (half of it spent coasting) I decided I'd dipped my toe in deep enough for the first day, and I'm proud to say that I'm finally CYCLING again!

I feel fantastic all over. But now I'm starting to realize why bikers wear those funny-looking padded shorts. I'm starting to think that might not be a bad investment.

Anybody know any hacks to juryrig chamois-type padding in street clothes?

Biking for a Cause

2010-05-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

Visions are swimming around in my head of how I'm going to look biking around town. I smile every time I think about it!

I see myself riding up big hills on the way to the store, and having people in cars going past me thinking "Wow, she's pretty fat but she's riding up a hill in street clothes. I always thought cyclists were hyper-fit health nuts. Maybe biking isn't as big a deal as I thought it was."

I see myself riding home from the store, laden with a week's worth of groceries (probably 10 bags), and having car riders think "WOW! I had no idea you could carry that much stuff on a bike! And she's FAT! If she can do it, I could do it. Maybe biking could be a way to save some gas money."

I see myself riding around town, using cool neon lights to illuminate my bike at night for safety. I can imagine people thinking "Wow...here comes that bike lady. That bike is COOL! I wouldn't mind riding a bike with awesome lights and stuff on it like that."

I see myself losing weight as the summer progresses and I become more and more fit. These same people who saw me biking as a very fat woman will also see me as I begin to look more and more beautiful through these transformations. They'll say to themselves "WOW, that chick is really shaping up! She used to be fat. I wonder if it's just the biking which is doing all this for her? Maybe I could stand to lose a few pounds. This might be worth considering."

I feel like I'm an ambassador for cycling. I think that if I can make cycling work in my life, then surely ANYONE could benefit from cycling. A person's fitness (or lack thereof) should not be a barrier to starting.

I'm also an ambassador for the whole "cargo bike" concept. I like the idea of taking bikes out of the purely recreational categories and making them into real workhorses. The Yuba Mundo is special among cargo bikes because it not only can carry far more than most of them, it also looks a lot more like a regular bike than most of them do. Let's not kid ourselves. Looks matter. A lot of people might appreciate the utility of a cargo bike, but wouldn't want to get one for themselves if it made them look like a weirdo. The Yuba Mundo looks more or less like an ordinary bike with a hefty carrying rack and just a few extra inches of length. I'm not sure yet whether it will mount like a regular bike onto a bus's bike rack, but I'm looking forward to testing that idea. The more ways in which the cargo bike can fit into people's preconceptions of what a bike is "supposed" to be, the easier it will be to sell folks on the idea of getting one for themselves.

Encouraging the acceptance and use of cargo bikes matters to me for environmental reasons. I like the idea of folks choosing pedal power instead of petroleum so that maybe our species might survive into the next century. Cars are not sustainable. That means that as they exist they cannot continue much longer. Not just "shouldn't", but CANNOT. Every alternative mode of transportation should be investigated thoroughly, and this one looks to be a real winner in terms of availability, affordability, utility, and social acceptability.

Another issue that matters a lot to me is the well being of folks without much money. Obviously I'm in a good position to understand those pressures. When a person has very little, and even what little they have is taken away from them by the endless hunger of automobile costs, it is practically impossible to get ahead at all. If all low-income people were encouraged to get and use cargo bikes for daily errands (including hauling around up to two children at a time along with groceries and stuff) then not only would it reduce the obesity epidemic amongst the already disadvantaged, it would reduce the number of days they might miss work due to their old cars breaking down. Maintenance on a bike is something like $40 per year to keep it tip-top. How awesome would it be to have every low-income household feeling proud and strong and independent because they all have well-made brand-new bicycles? This could be a social revolution which might really make a difference. For that reason I really think all welfare recipients should get at least as many incentives given to them to get and ride a bike as they are currently receiveing to get and repair their cars.

I'll happily be the testing ground to see how well that program might work.

Intro to Becoming a Cyclist

2010-05-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

What the hell am I thinking?

I am a 260-pound, 42 year old woman who hasn't ridden a bike in 30 years. But somehow this year I've suddenly decided to start biking full-time, everywhere I go.

Some background: I am a single mother of two kids (daughter 18, and son 9) who is unemployed on welfare, and has no car. I have good health in general, though there is some history of heart disease and diabetes in my family. I am not physically active. I spend most of my time sitting in front of the computer, and I think it's quite a bit of exercise to walk 10 minutes to the bus stop to go get groceries.

I live in Bremerton, Washington, where it rains nine months of the year, and where you can't go two miles without hitting a big hill. As of 2010, this is not a bike-friendly town. There are no special bike lanes or other accommodations. Most of the businesses in town don't even have bike racks out front.

My parents are generous people. Because they saw that my family had a need they reached down deep in their pockets and came up with $2500 to send me, so that I could buy a car. Instead, I decided to buy bikes for me and my daughter (my son already has one). Much as I didn't want to diss their wonderful gift, I had several good reasons for doing this crazy thing.

$2500 would buy me a car built sometime last century that would break down often and need repairs (that I can't afford) and need insurance (that I can't afford) and guzzle gas (which is predicted to double in price by the end of summer, but even at current rates I can't afford), as well as tabs, washing, parking, maintenance, etc. etc.
$2500 can buy my daughter and me both KICK ASS bicycles, brand new and shiny, as well as all the accessories. It will be almost the first time in my adult life that I've ever had anything brand-spanking-new. Not only that, they will be really GOOD quality, instead of something hand-me-down or bought at a secondhand shop. This was my chance to really invest in some family pride.
I can really use the exercise. 260 pounds is NOT a healthy weight for a woman to be. Given my sturdy 5'7" frame I probably could be healthy weighing 150 lbs (which is still considered large for a woman) but this extra 110 lbs of bacon grease isn't doing me any good. I can't afford membership at a gym (if I even would ever want to go). I am the kind of person that really believes in the conservation of energy. I don't see the point in dressing up funny and paying monthly dues to go bounce around in a room full of sweaty people who all probably look better than me, and get NO WORK done. If I'm gonna invest my calories, I'm gonna expect more of a return for it than just a sweaty gym suit afterwards. Using a bike as my main form of transportation gives me a direct payoff in results: I will be increasing my freedom and mobility, and I will be carting stuff like groceries and garden supplies to and fro just like as if I had a car. (BTW, that kind of stuff is seriously NO FUN to try hauling around on a bus. The aisles weren't designed to handle large loads of bags or whatever.)
It's good for the environment. This is kind of a side benefit to me, but still it's an important one. With oil spills happening and pollution and waste everywhere, it's really on my conscience to try to reduce the amount of damage I add to the planet. On a bicycle I won't be producing any pollution at all. My miles per gallon (of gasoline) is infinite, because I won't use any.
It just might be fun. Being on welfare there really isn't a lot of room in my monthly budget for stuff most people take for granted, like going out to movies or restaurants or buying video games. If riding my bicycle turns out to be something I can enjoy, then I will have found a free form of entertainment. I tell you right now, I can really USE some entertainment in my life. Things get pretty sad and dreary when you're on welfare.
Maybe-just-possibly I might find a new set of friends, and a new community to be a part of. One of the sad things about having no money and no car is that you are basically stuck at home doing nothing, and that is SO BORING (and lonely). The reason I'm online all the time is because that's just about the only way to stay in contact with friends. However, I have this inkling that if I get active in this "sport" I may find lots of new people to be friends with. And nobody is so rich they can afford to throw away a friend!

So that's my plan. The bike I've ordered is called the Yuba Mundo 21-speed. It is built to handle cargo loads of up to 440 lbs! That's not including the rider! Unlike ordinary bikes (which look to me about as sturdy as a credit card) this big, beefy bike will be able to handle the fact that I'm overweight, and ALSO be able to handle whatever loads I need to move from place to place, whether it be groceries, passengers, or bales of straw to mulch my garden. I just need to build up my muscles and endurance to be able to handle it.

I know my muscles exist under these marshmallow rolls. I used to walk up and down a long steep hill every day to get to the school bus stop, and eventually could leg press over 500 lbs from that exercise. My arms used to be quite strong because I would carry my children everywhere we went for the first five years of their lives. Not because they couldn't walk, but just because I loved carrying them, and they liked hitching a ride. So being fat isn't mutually exclusive to having muscles. But I would much rather cart around 110 lbs of gear or groceries than 110 lbs of excess fat.

My weight had been steady at 250 pounds since just after my son was born. (I gained about 35 pounds from each pregnancy.) The fact that it's creeping up on me now, just as I'm about to enter menopause, tells me that it's time to make a change or else end up as one of those sad, diabetic people so fat that they can hardly walk. I don't want that to be my fate. I'm not trying to be harsh to anyone out there who suffers that sort of life, because I totally believe it's what's in a person's heart that matters, not what their outsides look like. But in every practical sense, it is better to exercise and be healthy than to allow yourself to be immobilized by fat. Since I have the chance to make that choice now, I'm making it.

This is my commitment: from now on I AM A CYCLIST. If I need an emergency ride to the hospital, or to a distance too far to bike, or through deep snow or something I will accept a lift from a friend, or use a bus, or call a taxi. But for all my daily transportation needs, I will bike everywhere I go. (Once I build up to that level.)

Okay, let's be realistic. I can't even cycle around the BLOCK yet. I haven't even tried sitting on my new bike yet! (It's due to be delivered within the next ten days.) It's going to take time to build up these muscles, and to slowly increase the distances I can travel, as well as the weights I can carry. But step by step I will get there. I will overcome the sore muscles. I will overcome the nasty weather. I will overcome the hills and the lack of bike lanes. Bit by bit, I will grow into this commitment. And you get to watch me do it!