a day in the life of.....

i woke up about 6 am this morning, after going to sleep about 9 o'clock last night. for some reason i still feel tired. i think i had a series of dreams that involved lots of hard work. why can't i have dreams where i am in a hammock listening to jimmy buffet eating french fries .... whoa, where the heck did that come from? i almost forgot that i was an "ex-cyclist" my dreams consist of unaided cycling trips across north dakota in the middle of the winter... maybe that's what i was dreaming about. and maybe that's why i wake up so damn tired.

in any case we were all out of coffee this morning. i don't know if any of you out there have ever run out of coffee before, but you talk about extreme activities, that is definitely one. to an ex-cyclist, extreme adventure is not about being over prepared, it's about being barely prepared, or under prepared. i was absolutely under prepared for a morning with out coffee!
i rifled through the pantry trying to find some un-finished experimental coffees that i used to buy during my experimental coffee phase. i couldn't find anything but this canister of gourmet cappuccino mix. it looked more like hot chocolate mix. i was actually afraid to try it, besides i didn't feel like a warm milk shake at 6 in the morning. i did find some chai, and made that.

it was warm, dark and had some caffeine in it.... but it wasn't coffee :( in fact it actually made my stomach a little more upset than coffee. and it didn't even "wake me up". i tried to make things better by eating a bowl of emulated "cheerio" [they are actually call "scooters" and they come in a huge bag]

i feel after eating, but still something is missing. i don't know how i am going to carry a venti sized drink on my bike, but an ex-cyclist can do anything on his bike..... well a lot of things anyway.... or maybe just a bunch of stuff... maybe about the same amount of thing any other cyclist can do, only we don't care how fast we do it...and we do it without lycra :)

so there you have it, my morning.
[the picture at the top, was taken on my back porch. boy it would have been nice to be sitting out there with a really hot cup of coffee, watching the sunrise.


later

end of an awesome weekend.

sunday is the kind of day that always has a very specific feel to it. the feeling that i get the most, it is that of conclusion. it feels like everything has ended. most people are out of the streets the stores are more vacant... and the roads are slower. this feeling is even more prevalent in the fall and winter months. no one is in a big hurry to wake up and do anything. it is a very good day to relax. for me relaxing, usually involves some sort of exercise or adventure. when i return from whatever it was that i did, i usually fall back into the same groove as everyone else.

this sunday i was feeling especially lethargic. i had a really tough day yesterday and i was too tired to do something really big today. i had a bunch of dad things to do today, like pick up my kids from swim camp... i can't think of the other dad things i did, but i am sure there was something else. when three o'clock rolled around, alex asked if we could go on a bike ride. of course i couldn't resist such an offer. it took us a while to get ready, but mostly because i was moving really slowly.

we went out the farmer's trail from our neighborhood and headed out the nearby country road. it wasn't really cold, but it kind of felt cold because the sun was gone and things were kind of wet from yesterday.

we didn't go very far because it was getting dark quickly. i carried our extra clothes in my pannier, but we ended up not using them.

we ran into some dogs on the way out there. they were some pretty big dogs that decided the bikes should not ride on the public road in front of their house.... and owners who never tried to convince the dogs otherwise. alex and i were both pretty stressed out, i tried to stay calm, and focused mainly on trying to calm the dogs down. the only way i could think of was to talk straight to them. "how's it going dog?"...'blah blah....you'd better not bit me....blah blah".

we went out to this highway the connects to carter lake, but we didn't go that far. we just turned around and chatted all the way back home. it was pretty nice.

nothing but night

tonight was a lot warmer than this morning. it was actually about 45 degrees F. i wasn't absolutely freezing so i could take some more pictures.

the moon
it's not quite full, but it gave off enough light so things didn't seem so dark.

here is the scary sodium vapor tunnel... at least i think they are sodium vapor lights:


it seems that my blog is either pictures or words :)

mixing it up

last night was halloween, and i was still at work after dark. i've been under a lot of stress at work lately, and i wasn't in a big hurry to get home because there is a different kind of stress there. so for me the only time to decompress is the time i spend riding my bike to and from work. as things get more and more stressful i really need this time. i've broken through the 21 day habit rule. i now feel like riding to work is part of my daily life. it's a really good feeling, i highly recommend it.

last night i felt a little different. i was all set to ride home, when i checked the weather. it was pretty darn cold outside. i didn't have enough clothes to ride home because it wasn't that cold in the morning when i left home. since i never check the weather i was kind of out of luck. yesterday i was planing to run at lunch time with a friend, but i forgot to call her and i was a little too busy anyway, but i had my running gear with me. hmm... i few little mixing and matching of the gear... and i was able to put a running outfit together that should keep me warm enough to run about 6+ miles.
you can read about it at my other blog.... [link here]

my plan was to run home and then run to work the next day. then ride tonight. everything worked out as planned, except that it was even colder tonight...and i still didn't have enough clothes. once again i had to be a little creative and put together some clothes that should kept me warm for the ride home. it was something like:

two wind breakers.
thermal long sleeve
running shorts.
tights
leg warmers.
baggy cycling shorts
that stupid thing that goes on your head that i can't spell .

it was plenty for the ride home. the temperature was only about 24 degrees or so. i kept the effort level very low. i am still very tired from the run, and i want to keep on riding tomorrow.

later