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Shannon watching Magnum, P.I. dubbed in Spanish on some Spanish channel. Don't ask me. |
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Hoo boy...been a while since I wrote anything here, huh? It's been a while since I wrote anything at all. I've been meaning to sit down and do a nice, long journal entry for a few days about what's been going on, but I'm really tired right now so I think I'll keep it short. Maybe that'll keep me from blathering aimlessly so much.
The reason I'm so tired is because I've done almost 60 miles on my bike this weekend, and about 5 miles on foot. I got my racing bike all set up and finally got my bike shoes and stuff on Friday, so Shannon and I headed out yesterday for a test spin. We rode north, came back, and did about 21 miles total. The bike is running beautifully, just need to tweak the seat/stem height and maybe get the wheels trued. I also think I'll change the tires; it has 700x28s on it now, and they're so fat they almost rub on the frame! (It is a racing bike.) In fact, they do rub on the frame right now, since the wheels are out of true, which is really annoying. I think the bike came with 23s or 25s, so I'll try to get a cheap set of those to put on it soon. That'll speed me up a little, too--though that wasn't really a problem. I was keeping up with Shannon just fine, which surprised me quite a bit, seeing as I haven't ridden that bike on the road for years, and I haven't ridden any long rides at all for about a year. Of course, she wasn't really trying to go to fast, just to get some miles in for her training schedule. I have no doubt she could kick my ass if she wanted to. ;)
I was actually just planning to do a quick ride to test the bike out, maybe 10 miles, but Shannon wanted to get a little bit of mileage in for her training schedule, so we decided to do 20. I felt fine after we got back, and fine today save a little soreness in my nether regions, so Shannon proposed we do another ride today, but longer: 40 miles. We were originally planning on heading north again (there are some amazing houses up there and a lot of ridiculously wealthy people, obviously) but just decided to head south along the lakefront on a whim. The lakefront path stops when you leave Evanston, and doesn't start again until you get a few miles into Chicago. We'd never been down that way, so we wound up riding on the side of the road on Sheridan, which, well...pretty much sucked--too much traffic. We didn't know where the lakefront path picked up, so we crossed over to the other side of the street to look for it, and wound up riding on the sidewalk. At the intersection where the lakefront path starts, there were a bunch of bicycle police staked out, and they stopped us and another biker to give us a warning about riding on the sidewalk and a map of the suggested route to/from Evanston to the Chicago lakefront path, which was actually pretty nice to have. They said this weekend they're doing warnings, and next weekend they actually start ticketing people and putting wheel locks on bikes! 'It would really suck to have to walk your bike home, wouldn't it?' one of the cops said to us. I'll say! I didn't know they did that to bikes anywhere. Makes sense, I guess; I always wondered what they would do if they stopped a biker who didn't have their ID or anything with them, which I usually don't. Guess they lock your bike and you'll have to report to the police station or the courthouse to have it removed. Clever.
It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful ride, but MAN were there a lot of people down there. It was early afternoon on Memorial Day weekend, so we picked about the worst possible time to bike the lakefront. It was still cool to see, though. Coming into downtown is pretty spectacular, and there's Navy Pier, several boatyards, and a bunch of beaches. It's a nice path, and would be good for biking if it was deserted. :) Next time we go that way, we're planning on going really early in the morning, which our upstairs neighbor advised us to do long ago. Because of all the people, our round trip time was a little less than three hours of actual riding time, plus a little time when we sat down by the lake to eat Balance bars. Because the going was so slow, we decided to turn around about 18 miles out and head back, so we got about 36 miles total in. Not the 40 we were shooting for, but not too shabby, especially for my second day out on a racing bike I haven't ridden in years. It felt good, but my neck got pretty sore from looking up while down on the bars, since I've been used to riding mountain bikes exclusively the past few years. It was especially bad because I had to be down and near the brakes almost the whole ride because of all the people on the path. I could write a paragraph about some of the morons down there going in the wrong lane, wandering aimlessly, and causing other traffic problems, but I'll leave that for another time. Shannon already went to bed, and I'd kind of like to join her. I'm fucking exhausted.
So it was a good ride. We got back and Millie was very bored and hot so we decided to take her to the beach. I felt ok from the ride, Shannon's trying to get as much training in as possible, and running to the beach helps wear Millie out, so we decided to run instead of drive. Well, I've been running that run non-stop (each way, I mean, with an interlude to let Millie play on the beach) for a few weeks now, but today I could only run about half of it after yesterday's and today's bike rides. I ran a little more than half of it, though, so I got probably most of three miles of running in and up to two miles of walking. Now can you see why I'm so tired...? But it feels good, like I've accomplished something. And as Shannon keeps pointing out, this will help me SO much with the MS150. There's actually a training schedule for that ride on their website, but I haven't looked at it for a few weeks, since things kept happening to delay me being able to ride my bike. I think I'll be able to catch up pretty quickly--living with a girl training for an Ironman Triathlon has the side-effect of getting you in shape yourself, out of guilt at your own laziness if nothing else. ;)
So I'm going to be sore tomorrow, especially my butt and shoulders, but that will pass. I just need to get a bunch of saddle time in to get used to that, it happens every time I start biking after a long lapse. I also managed to crash turning around in a parking lot a little south of Navy Pier, and scraped my left knee nicely. Shannon and I were trying to figure out which way to go to stay on the path, and I was turning a tight circle in a little paved area. Well, there was a big patch of sand about an inch deep that had drifted into one corner, and I couldn't turn quite sharp enough to clear it. My front tire hit it, slid sideways, and I couldn't unclip from my pedal fast enough to catch myself. Luckily, I was just turning around so I wasn't going fast at all. It looked much worse than it was when we got back because of the blood that had pooled and dried on it, and Millie decided to lick it while I was sitting on the couch catching my breath before we went running. Yuck.
Well, I have a bunch more stuff queued up in my notes to write about (yes, I keep notes of stuff to cover here in my journal, don't you?), especially my job, but I'm just too tired. Maybe tomorrow. Clean flannel sheets are calling my name.
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amused
curious
pensive
hot
tired
frustrated
surprised