Went Out Like Superman

Yesterday I went for a ride on my bike. It was the first one since Friday and I was anxious to go. I had intended to go on a 30-mile ride at a reasonable pace, but after my first hour, I realized I was riding faster than I ever had before—15.5 mph. I went out like Superman! Coming back was a different story. I started to suffer on the return ride, and the last 10 miles was really hard. I came close to getting off my bike. I went out like Superman, but I came home like Pee Wee Herman.

I made it and came in at a pretty good average pace, but I couldn’t have maintained it for any longer. After the ride I was really spent. I felt worse than I had after any other ride I’ve done. This all worried me a bit in terms of trying to go on longer rides. Am I just an old fart? Had I been trying to go too many miles in a week too soon? I suppose I need to read a book on how to train for long distance cycling. It is right at the top of my horizontal “to do” list. Really.

Later Tuesday afternoon I came down with a fever and spent much of the day on the couch. I had a fever all night, and slept most of this afternoon as well. I am an old fart, but maybe that isn’t why I felt as horribly as I did. I’m thinking the reason I turned into Pee Wee is because I was getting sick. That is what I’m telling myself anyway. It works as I sit here with a headache, fever, and ready to go back to bed. It gives me comfort…and it is all about me.

I am going to give myself more comfort by dispensing some wisdom. These are five things I know:

1. Grocery store flowers are for emergencies or other people
Yeah, those flowers look pretty good and come at a reasonable price, but your wife will know. It is part of the training—women take secret classes on how to spot department store jewelry, insincere compliments, and grocery store flowers. They’re prepared so don't even try to get them by. Oh sure, it is OK every once in a while, but under no circumstances should you try to pass them off on a real flower-giving occasion. A mistake like that will stay with you for a long, long time. Trust me. I’ve learned the hard way.

2. Don’t let your kids play sports
Coming from someone who spent his entire childhood playing sports that sounds strange. OK, so let them play sports but be careful which ones they choose. The great American pastimes like baseball, football or basketball are OK--just watch out for things like gymnastics, ballet, ice skating, karate, and tennis. They are all pyramid schemes designed to collect money from your child (well, really from you) to maintain infrastructures that train really talented kids and support former professionals. They need your kid and your money because the few talented kids couldn't possibly pay the bills and provide aging athletes with a decent living. All of those sports need the mediocre masses. Really. If you don't believe me check it out.

If you cannot satisfy your child’s need for sporting by giving them a stick and a rolled up sock, then encourage them to play basketball or baseball. These games are great because they are team sports that, generally speaking, require little equipment, can be played at facilities found in just about any small town in the country, and are coached by volunteers seeking to relive past sporting glories (or make up for past sporting failures). While the sporting experience may not be first-rate, you’ll still be able to afford to send your kid to college when their sporting career is over.

3. You cannot turn a Starbucks iced coffee into a protein shake
I know you’ve been tempted to do it. You're enjoying a cool caffeine boost when you realize you are hungry too. Instead of using the milk to make that protein shake, why not use your coffee? Perfectly logical, right? No. Resist that temptation because it will end badly. As soon as you dump that whey powder into that delicious iced coffee it will turn to sticky clumps. You'll be chewing your iced coffee and it'll taste funny. This same advice applies to beer. Just don’t.

4. Don’t let your kids listen to your IPod
This may sound silly to you. Letting your kids listen to the songs on your IPod seems pretty harmless. Well, think about the songs that are on your IPod and then picture your kids singing along to them in front of your parents. Scared? My son loves Rock You Like a Hurricane by the Scorpions and he played it over and over while I was visiting my parents recently. In case you have forgotten, the song is not about the weather and it is not about playing rock and roll music. Sure, it is cute to see my son rockin’ out to Weezer—their lyrics are less likely to raise grandparental eyebrows (well, except for Hash Pipe). It is not so cute to see my daughter rockin’ out to Superfreak by Rick James. That is not a wholesome kids' song and it does not discuss positive female role models.

Get ‘em their own IPod and fill it with songs from nice Disney movies. Those are filled with positive female characters and model wholesome relationships. Just look at Beauty and the Beast. Belle tolerates a giant bully with anger issues and “learns” to see the good in him. That is what I want my daughter to do—find a violent butthead and tolerate whatever he dishes out in the hope that he’ll change into a handsome prince. How did I get on this rant? I love Disney.

5. Don’t let your kids plan their own birthday parties
Really, do I need to say this? Picture elephants in inflatable bouncy houses, pools filled with ice cream, the Scorpions putting on a live show in your living room (that would be my 5 year old). My daughter’s birthday party is coming up and she’s had some really exciting suggestions. One was to get piñata for each kid attending the party. Her reasoning was that it would insure that each kid got the same amount of candy and there would be no hurt feelings. I love the socialist sentiment, but the capitalistic implications of that idea are pretty steep. She then decided to skip the piñata completely…and just take all the guests to the local candy store. There is a store nearby that sells all kinds of candies, much of it by weight. It is a beautiful idea, but again the cost of taking 14 kids to the candy store? She is so giving, so generous…

My son is completely in to Indiana Jones. Can you picture the Indy-themed party he is planning? Whips for all the kids, blow guns with poison darts, gun play, fist fights, flaming pits, motorcycles, chilled monkey brains, and NO snakes.

It's All Over

Well it’s all over except for the second guessing and excuse making—le Tour, the beautiful race—has ended. Three weeks of the best and hardest cycling in the world…the long, long build up…the renewed rivalry between Armstrong and Contador…Lance Armstrong going for #8…it is all over. I feel a little like a kid the day after a week spent at Disney.

Before the tour started I made some predictions about the race based on my years of following cycling and generally deep knowledge of the sport—I’ve been following it in earnest for at least two years now. None of those predictions came true. Alberto Contador did win and Team Radioshack did not really have an impact on the general classification. Sure they won the team general classification, but Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, and Andreas Kloden weren’t the combined powerhouse that I predicted. I said Astana wasn’t a strong team, but they proved to be the strongest and best organized one in the race. I predicted that Vinokourov would cause Contador trouble and he didn’t. He worked his butt off for Bertie and made a real impact on the race. So, there you go. It is official—I don’t know what the hell I am talking about when it comes to cycling!

Besides being a big bike race that I was really looking forward to following, I used le Tour as a benchmark for a couple goals I set for myself back in January. That is when I started this blog and started my attempt to lose weight and start riding my bike. In the time that has passed, I’ve lost about 23 lbs (I started at 206.8 and today I weigh 183.7). I had wanted to lose 30 lbs. According to my BMI (28.34) I am still overweight (and in danger of increased risk of health problems), but my protruding belly tells me that every day. It is smaller, but my old friend hasn’t left me yet. I’ll keep working on it. To get my BMI below the overweight threshold, I need to lose an additional 23.7 lbs…or what I just lost. I am not sure I’ll ever get there. If I lost 13.7 lbs more, I’ll be below the increased health risk threshold…something a bit more reasonable to shoot for.

My other goal was to be comfortable going on long bike rides. Back in January I tried to ride my bike and just a ride of a couple of miles nearly killed me. Despite having my bike stolen, I’ve made good progress on this goal. To date the longest ride I’ve gone on is 40 miles. More importantly, I can go on long bike rides and enjoy them and I have established a healthy hobby to occupy my “spare” time. I would like to ride longer distances and will focus now on working toward going 100 miles.

You may think the end of the Tour de France ends my obsession with cycling for the year. Ha! No more cycling? There are several smaller tours, a few late season Classics, and one major 3-week tour left—Vuelta a Espana—and then the World Championships. And don’t forget about the US Championships right here in SC. And the transfer season—when riders get new contracts and change teams—is just heating up, too. Oh no, cycling will go on into the early fall. And here in SC, that is just when the weather gets civilized, so there will be more time for long rides. And don’t forget about the investigation into US Postal, Lance Armstrong, and the bikes-for-doping charges. That surely will drag on past the first of the year. It’ll be ugly, but it’ll get me through until the season starts up again in January.

And in case things lag in the cycling world…football season is just around the corner! Oh yeah and school starts in a few weeks and I am still married with two kids.

Real Improvement Fast--Guaranteed!

I’ve stumbled upon a fool proof system for making significant leaps forward in both speed and distance as a cyclist. It is a program I developed quite by accident, but I can attest to the results it provides. This is a program designed for those just starting out in cycling. If you are an established cyclist, this won’t work for you.

This system is based on following two rules for at least the first month of your cycling career. And I am going to share them with you now….for free…because I am a giver.
1. Pay No Attention to Nutrition
When you start cycling, don’t worry about eating before you go ride and DO NOT eat anything while you are riding. Also, don’t concern yourself with replacing electrolytes while you ride. When you are finished, don’t worry about eating to facilitate recovery. Keep this up for as long as you can. Then, go and do some reading about cycling nutrition. Follow suggestions about eating before, during and after your ride. Also, get some sports drink and drink it along with water and food during your ride.

Once you make that shift to proper nutrition, you’ll be amazed at your results. Once I started paying attention to nutrition, I was able to ride significantly longer, enjoy the ride more and also ride at a faster pace without any increased effort or suffering.

2. Pay No Attention to the Pressure in Your Tires
Just like with the food, just don’t worry about your tires. If they seem to have air in them, let them be—just power on following your chosen program of rides and distances. If it feels like you are riding in sand, just keep your head down and work. Then after at least six weeks, take a look at what your tires really require. Then go to a local gas station and fill them to the appropriate pressure.

After you fill those tires to the proper level, you’ll notice a difference right away. That feeling of riding in sand will disappear and you’ll feel like superman on a bike. I guarantee that you’ll see a significant increase in both your pace and the distance at which you can maintain it.


As I said, I discovered this program purely by accident...and out of massive stupidity. After paying attention to nutrition and filling my tires to the proper levels, I actually increased my pace by about 1.5 mph and found I can ride longer distances more comfortably--literally within the span of a week. When you are a dope, you can get the same kind of increases that you might get from doping.

On the Side of the Road

It has been a busy week for me riding my bike. I started on Sunday by finishing a 40 mile ride in less than 3 hrs. In fact, I rode the fastest average time (14.1 mph) that I’ve ever ridden over any distance. And that was the longest distance I’ve ridden. I discovered the benefits of eating and drinking while on long rides and it really makes a difference! Then on Tuesday I followed up with a 23 mile ride and I hope to do between 20 and 30 miles tomorrow morning. I am trying to increase my mileage and time on the bike so I can build up to longer distances. This weekend I’ll shoot for another 40 miles or maybe a bit longer if I can make it.

While logging miles on the roads of the South Carolina Midlands, I’ve seen all kinds of interesting things. As an archaeologist I am trained to look for patterns in material objects and to use those patterns to interpret human behavior. It is hard to leave that training behind when I am not playing archaeologist. So here are a few observations I can make about the stuff I see along the side of the road.

1. You See Dead Things

No real surprise there, right? I’ve seen lots of dead things. Some of them are really flat and desiccated, while other things are more fresh…and graphic…and gross…and smelly. The array of species is interesting. Sure, I’ve seen cats and dogs and squirrels. Those mostly occur on roadsides in town. Out in the country, the dead things get a bit more exotic. On Sunday, my ride took me a ways out into the rural country side. In that area I saw a dead gray fox. It was pretty fresh and twisted and I can still see it in my mind’s eye. I also saw a rattle snake. It was pretty flat but still colorful, smelly, and fully identifiable. It wasn’t very big, maybe 2 feet long. It was a youngster that didn’t get the chance to feast on too many Yankees before he met his maker. I also saw a dead field mouse. It had almost made it back to the field before it passed on.

It is fun to keep a list of the species I’ve seen dead on the roadside. I am sort of like a birder. I should keep a journal specifically of the dead animals I’ve seen and make a list of the things I want to see on the roadside. I can cross them off as I see them. It’ll be fun. Maybe I can include my kids and make it a home school project. I should take photos.

2. Lots of Interesting Trash

Oh yeah, there’s tons of trash on the roadsides. You know, the usual things…cans, bottles, food wrappers, etc. I’m not just talking about those things. Here in SC people put much bigger things on the roadside…and they create big piles of those things. In town you’ve got trash day and recycling day and then you’ve got yard waste day and also big crap day. The stuff people leave in the road next to their house for big crap day is pretty amazing. You get an assortment of big boxes—incidentally, if I were a thief I’d just drive around on big crap day to see who just got a new big screen TV or computer. You also get an amazing variety of other stuff: unwanted chairs, old bread makers, broken furniture, bird cages…you know, crap. Now I haven’t read the city regulations on what they will pick up on big crap day, but it just amazes me what people put in the street. It all disappears by Friday evening—poof. The evidence of our hyper-consumption disappears leaving us guilt free and ready to buy more!

Out of town I saw lots of big piles of crap next to the road in front of people’s houses. Sometimes the crap was even bigger and scarier—large appliances, car batteries, old bikes and other kids’ toys plus a fine assortment of household waste. The difference is that those piles out in the country look a bit more established than the ones that disappear each Friday in town. I’ll let you know after tomorrow, but I’m thinking that those piles in the country don’t disappear every Friday. Those piles may represent a bit more of a permanent local trash solution. Then again, maybe they represent caching behavior. Since folks outside of town generally have to take their trash to the dump themselves, maybe they just store it on the side of the road in front of their house until the pile is big enough to warrant a trip to the dump. I wonder if this keeps them from over-consuming like us city folk. I’ll keep an eye on this and report back.

3. The Rural Romantic Encounter Site

Some archaeologist colleagues recognized these as a particular kind of site based on patterns of material culture found while doing archaeological site survey on the Savannah River Site (A Department of Energy Facility). The original name given to these places was a bit off color, so I've changed it to make it more palatable. In the woods they noticed a pattern of material objects from which they inferred the behavior implied by the name. The material objects—repeatedly found in association—included 5 empty beer cans and at least one used condom. They presume the 6^th beer was for the ride home afterwards.

On the roadside in the country I’ve seen the partial remains of similar sites—beer cans in association with used condoms. In my case, I am viewing objects on the side of the road and not in the woods. Therefore, it is probably safe to assume that I am dealing with secondarily deposited materials not in their original context. Most likely the behaviors creating the material pattern took place inside the car and were discarded. I would probably need to do more systematic investigations, but I’ll bet the pattern of 5 beer cans with the 6^th missing applies to these secondary deposits. If I get a chance, I’ll check this out too.

I hope to add to this over time and maybe someday make a coffee table book out of the roadside. As I go on longer rides, I’ll have more time to investigate the roadside (and I will be in more need of things to distract me from the pain), so I should lots more to talk about. As the length of my rides increases so too will the periods of wild delirium—so the stories should get more interesting, too.

A Good Gig if You Can Get It

A few days ago my son and I went to the library and he picked out a few books to read. He picked them based on their covers mostly. One of the books that we brought home was Basho and the River Stones by Tim Myers, illustrated by Oki S. Han. It is story whose main protagonist is Matsuo Basho, a famous 17th century Japanese poet. In fact, Basho is the one often credited with really developing the haiku into the popular form of poetry it still is in Japan. The book is really good on lots of levels.

We just got around to reading it this morning and after we were done, my son asked when Basho had been born. I went online and looked him up. Basho was born in 1644 into lower nobility. He eventually gave up any claim to titles and land to become a poet.

After becoming famous for his haiku, he took on twenty disciples and became a teacher. After a stint living as a recluse in a hut his disciples had built for him (that first one burned and they ended up building two more before he died), he took up traveling and writing about his journeys. He became ill on his last trip and died peacefully, surrounded by his disciples. Here is the last poem attributed to Basho:

Falling sick on a journey
My dream goes wandering
Over a field of dried grass

According to Tim Meyers (Author’s Note), Basho “lived a life of simplicity, spirituality and endless travel, all of which found expression in his writing.” He dedicated his life to “seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, hearing, considering, and appreciating in the most intense way possible, with his whole being.”

Now that is a good gig! Travel, write poetry, have disciples and have them build you huts, live to experience the world and write about it. I think Basho’s approach just leap-frogged going to the Tour de France as the tippety top of my “to do” list. Now if I can just find someone who will pay for me and my wife and kids to travel around and let me write about it. I can take my bike and get some rides in, too. Maybe I can travel to le Tour and write about that. I wonder if anyone has written a haiku about the Tour?

Ouch!

With my “new” bike in the shop, I went for a run yesterday. It nearly killed my body and my morale. Today, my quads are killing me, absolutely killing me. My Achilles tendons aren’t much better. The end result is that I am hobbling around like a double leg trauma victim. It hurts so bad to bend my legs that I avoid doing it at all costs. I almost have to lift my legs with my arms to get them to bend going up steps and into the car. Going down steps is just as bad. I’ve found that you can do it without bending your knees, but you have to kind of hunch your back and stick you butt out. All of this makes for lots of grimaces, grunts, and some pretty odd movements. I am really not socially palatable to most people right now. I appear to have special needs that should really require an aide or full-time care giver.

Obviously, running 3 miles was really tough for me. My breathing wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t especially good either, but my legs really gave out before the breathing. Running hurt so much that I had to stop and walk a lot…and I don’t like that. I’ve said before that quitting on a hill or some other challenge is a tough thing to overcome. It kills the morale at the moment, but sets the precedent that quitting is OK. Yesterday, I had to quit because I just couldn’t do it…or I just couldn’t make myself do it. I don’t like that. And on top of all the pain and suffering (still today), I only burned 408 calories! Calorie for calorie, any other form of torture would be better than running. Hell, burn the calories off with a flame thrower, roll me in honey and fire ants, make me crawl up a staircase over broken glass, strap me in a chair with my eyes propped open and make me watch the View. Any of that would be preferable to running.

Really, the effort wasn’t worth the result. I could have ridden my bike, burned more calories, and actually enjoyed it. I can honestly say without hesitation that riding my bike is fun and running is not fun. When I ride my bike, I feel like I am flying. When I run I feel like I am wearing two cement shoes and trying to run a shallow lake of oatmeal.

That said, the difficulty of the run has taught me something. I hadn’t given it tons of thought before, but it shouldn’t be surprising that just riding my bike is only going to get certain parts of me fit. Since a big part of what I am doing is making me more fit, this gives me pause to think. I really want to be able to ride 50 or 60 miles if I feel like it, so I want to get into some kind of cycling shape. At the same time, I want to keep losing weight and increasing my overall fitness. That means I need to keep working with the bike but I also need to add some other things to my fitness regimen.

Besides fitness there is something else nagging me here—running was hard and I couldn’t handle it. I’ve gotten myself into this frame of mind where I don’t want to back down and face limits. Oh sure, I want to be reasonable about my limits, but I don’t want to limit myself because something is hard. I feel like if I don’t start running and get into the kind of shape that will let me run 3 to 5 miles a couple of times a week, I’ll be backing down. Plus, cyclists say the ability to suffer and recover is a big part of bike riding…especially over long distances and up and down hills. I feel like I need to force myself to suffer through the running and conquer it—or at least get some kind of a handle on it. Maybe I should spend money on a therapist instead of a new pair of cross-training shoes.

I am not sure if I am really prepared to work out every day, but that is where I am seem to be going. I know I cannot take 2 hours every day to ride my bike, but I suppose I can take a half hour every couple of days to run and then get in maybe 2 or 3 rides in the course of a week. If I don’t completely wear my body out maybe I’ll lose what I need to so that my BMI says I am not overweight. Maybe.

Bikes are Cool...Running...?

Not long after suffering the indignity of having my bike stolen from my back door, I got a new one. Well, it isn't exactly new. It was my friend Kyle's bike and he got it after his mom decided she didn't like it. It is a few years old and has spent its share of time outside, alone and probably a little sad.Still, it is a solid bike made by a good company--Specialized. It may not be new, but it is new to me (and, after all, this is really just about me). Just a few short hours after I discovered that my mountain bike was stolen I was able to pick this "new" one up. The tires were flat, the sprockets a bit rusted, and the cables were frayed. Otherwise, it is a great bike in pretty good shape. After some lubricant, some tire pumping, and reconnecting the brakes (interestingly Kyle found a problem with the brakes and his solution was to disconnect them entirely) it rode just fine. No, it rode like a dreamsicle...sweet, smooth, and cool.

In case you didn't know, not all bikes are the same. I had a mountain bike that was made to be ridden up and down hills on trails. It had a short, stocky frame with fat, knobby tires and straight handlebars. The cool professional road cyclists ride different bikes. They are a bit longer, have lighter frames and much narrower tires and those nifty curved handle bars. Rather than being a mountain bike or a road bike, the bike I got from Kyle is a hybrid....a bike with some of the characteristics of both. Now, there are hybrids and there are hybrids. Some hybrids take a road bike and give it a more rugged frame and wider tires, making a cool and flexible kind of bike. The bike Kyle gave me is the Love Boat kind of hybrid, designed for pleasure cruising in comfort and style. It has the handle bars set high so you ride upright and a big, fat, cushy saddle (if you are cool you refer to a bike seat as the saddle). It is a built for leisure cruising, which is why I've taken to calling it the Granny Cruiser. Now I am not going to pretend that I am a professional cyclist or a competitive cyclist or even a particularly fit novice cyclist. I do aspire to be at least the latter and that takes some fairly serious, long-distance riding. And really requires something approaching a road bike--something designed to be ridden on the roads quickly and over long distances. Sure, my mountain bike would have gotten me quite a ways today toward that goal, but I eventually would have wanted something designed to be ridden on roads. The great thing about the Granny Cruiser is that I can turn it into something that will operate more like the kind of hybrid that is designed to be ridden more seriously.

The day I got the Granny Cruiser from Kyle I quickly got it in riding condition. On Monday, I took the Granny Cruiser on our maiden voyage--a 20-mile ride around my normal loop. I was aware that the thinner tires with a smoother tread might actually allow me to go a little faster than I normally do on my mountain bike. Somewhere along the ride I decided I wanted to improve my average speed...and I figured this new bike would help me do that. I busted my hump the whole ride...kept pedaling down the hills, pushed hard up the hills, and adopted a low "time trial" position as often as I could. Despite my best efforts my speed didn't increase. In fact, I went a little slower on this 20-mile ride than I had averaged on my longer ride on Friday (13.4 mph vs 13.7 mph). Now I am as used to failure and backsliding as the next guy, but still I was a bit disappointed. I really thought I "ate up" that 20 miles in record time. There's a life lesson in that. If you think you've done something especially well or expect to do something especially well--you probably didn't or won't.

The Granny Cruiser is a fairly big and heavy bike. In fact, it might be a bit heavier than my mountain bike had been. That may have contributed some to the speed at which I rode. Also, the handle bars are set up high so that you have to sit upright when you ride. When you are just tooling around with an ice cream or beer in your hand, this isn't a big deal. When you are trying to go fast over a long distance sitting upright turns your chest into a sail. .The problem is that the sail doesn't help you go faster, it actually catches the wind, creates drag, and slows you down. I also found that the upright posture decreased the power of my pedaling and made constant, hard pedaling uncomfortable. I think some of my pace result was caused by the fact that I was riding upright. By the time I had finished riding I was convinced that I had to lower the bars and raise the seat before I rode it a long ways again.

Yesterday I took the Granny Cruiser to the bike shop to get some new shifter cables, lower the handlebars, and replacege then bent ones with a straight bar. The straight bar will allow me to ride with my torso more parallel to the ground, reducing wind drag. It also changes the positioning of my legs, producing more power with more comfort. After I see how the new bar configuration works I'll look into a new saddle. I like the one that is on there, but I think I'd be better off with a mountain bike saddle. It will be lighter than the barkalounger on there now, but still cushier than a true racing saddle--a good compromise until I can ride off a bit more of the junk in my trunk. Is it ironic that the less cushy my tushy, the less cushy the seat? Somewhere in there something's got to start hurting.

I was really hoping that my bike would be done today because I wanted to go on two 20-mile rides this week, followed by something longer on the weekend. At this point, I won't get the bike back until Friday night so I won't make that second shorter ride before the long weekend ride. To stay with my plan in some form I am left with an unappealing alternative--running. I am going to get up early tomorrow morning and take a nice run through the streets of Shandon. I'll join the rest of the Shandonistas on parade--the dog walkers, the grannys, the health impaired, and the road warriors (serious joggers with expensive shoes and heart monitors strapped to their chests). It'll be interesting to see how far I can run. I am thinking that if I can run more than 3 miles it will be a miracle. It is tempting to run the loop I usually ride but my brain thinks 7 miles is too far. I won't really know how bike riding translates into running fitness until I try it. As long as I don't psych myself out, I assume I'll be fine. Who knows, maybe by this time tomorrow I'll want to be a runner instead of a cyclist.

I doubt it. As Chet says, bikes are cool.

P.S. I went on my “run” this morning and learned a few valuable, painful lessons. First, my biking fitness does not translate in any way, shape, or form to running fitness. Running is a million times harder. With a bike you have those wheels and those gears and sprockets turning power into forward motion. I don’t know the physics but I do know that the energy you expend for each push of the pedal takes you a lot further on a bike than every step you take running. Gravity helps out a lot more on a bike and you can hide from your pain by not pedaling down hills. With running, you need every step to get to the next one and its just raw muscle power propelling you. It was brutal.

I ran (and walked) just over 3 miles and it took about 33 minutes—I averaged 11 minutes per mile. When I ran in high school I could consistently run 6.5 minute miles. Sure, I am not in high school anymore…remember it’s not the years, it’s the miles. I felt every kind of pain that I remember from my entire running career---tightness, pain in the Achilles I hurt my last year of high school, arm and shoulder fatigue. Oh yeah, and I almost threw up, too.

I sort of anticipated having a difficult time, but I didn’t imagine it would be that hard. In fact, I may have psyched myself out just a bit. I really didn’t think I could run very far and it turned out that I couldn’t run very far. One thing I didn’t anticipate was being passed by jogging grannies with dogs tied to their waists. That really didn’t help my morale much. I honestly think the pathetic runners like me just don’t show their faces on the mean streets of Shandon. They’ve been humiliated enough that they run on a treadmill in the safety of a gym or in a dark, secret room of their house. Maybe they have a secret club I could join.