Took a few minutes to create an account over at routeslip.com. Then spent half an hour working out the kinks on a map of my commute, and linked it the comments on my cycling log. It’s probably good I don’t have any enemies since they could stake out my route and follow me to work if I did. And in case I do and don’t know about it, it’s also a good thing we lock the office door now.
I received a speedometer for Christmas and this morning it became my favorite gift. It’s a Trek Incite 9i, which means it has so many features that it would need a relative humidity indicator to be any more advanced than it already is. As an added bonus it’s also wireless. So with my new od/speed/chron/therm-ometer installed, I set out on this morning’s commute….
…And when I arrived at work, I logged it on mycyclinglog.com (at Ian’s recommendation and Tim’s insistence). Contrary to all things Internet I dislike linking in my posts except when it’s absolutely necessary; but I am posting it in my list of frequently visited sites for anyone who might be genuinely interested in tracking my progress. An additional, self-serving motive is that even if I don’t blog as often as I’d like there’s still something that will be updated regularly. For one thing, logging a ride takes only a few minutes. Plus, if there’s one thing I love to get credit for it’s exercising.
The site itself is pretty sweet. I added my Trek Fuel EX as the first bike — scary to think that I might someday discover the need for multiple bikes, right? — realizing quickly that I’m probably the site’s only registered user commuting on a mountain bike. Maybe it’s not so crazy that I’ll eventually have more than one bike after all. (For now, though, one is good enough now that I have new road tires.) Every ride I log is publicly viewable, and when I log in I have access to statistics, mileage calendars, and graphs tracking my improvement.
Some quick stats from today’s ride:
The most exciting aspect of this whole thing is that now that I can start logging different mileages without using my car, meaning I can vary my route and use one of several biking sites to plot the different paths. Hopefully I’ll be ready to do this as early as next week. After all, it’s not the destination — it’s the ride.
My bike’s in the shop right now getting a tune-up that was long overdue. When I threw it in to the trunk Wednesday night I think it was the final blow because the derailer bent a little. I’ve got spares I can use here, but Tim’s bike is too heavy for road biking while Dia’s is a little small and I don’t feel like swapping out the pedals for one ride only. As expected, I started hemorrhaging money when I dropped mine off at REI. Not only did I go for the $90 tuning — which includes soaking the moving parts in a cleaning solution and recalibrating it all when reassembled — but we discovered a tear in the tire that necessitated two new tires at $20 each. This after I spent $50 in gear the previous night and before I even get a bike pump. As long as I step it up a little bit and make it more of a daily thing I can still save money on gasoline in the long run.
Anyway, I was going to use Dia’s bike into work this morning after taking the past two off, but my sore throat has worsened every day this week. I can still speak but now I’m having the slightest trouble swallowing. The general under-the-weather malaise coupled with the attachment I feel for my own bike helped me put off another biking commute until the next time, which will probably be late next week.
I’m so excited about our gift ideas this year I can hardly contain myself. My sisters are going to be floored with some of the ideas we came up with, and I can only describe the final result as The Price is Right meets Survivor. I hope I remember my camera so I can document what is sure to be The Gift Event of the decade. At any rate, I’m sure the gift giving will go as smoothly as it always does in our house (surprisingly, considering we haven’t made the switch to a Secret Santa or some other form of gift exchange yet.
For this year’s gift-giving extravaganza we’ll be heading down to Maryland for most of next week. We’re making a “quick detour” to Tunkhannock, Pa. on Saturday, but Dia, my grandmother, and I will be on our way down by early evening. It’ll be the first Christmas without my grandfather and therefore the first we’ve spent back home in a few years.
I don’t know what it is about posting that makes me dread the very act. There’s plenty to write about and spelling and grammar errors don’t frustrate me as much as they used to (though I’d love a spell check feature on the posting page); and it’s a relatively simple process, just open the web form, type a few paragraphs, and save. Part of the annoyance is that every time I save I have to wait five seconds for the page to refresh and I live to save a lot. If I ever forget to save, that’s exactly when I lose a few hundred words by hitting the Refresh button or key combination accidentally — mostly because it’s ingrained from editing HTML all day. I’ll habitually refresh a page just if I’m reading a long article somewhere regardless of whether I’m at work or not anymore.
The biggest obstacle, now that I think about it, is probably my tendency to overedit my writing. I’m never content with the way a paragraph flows or my word choice. I cringe when I read back over something I’ve written and immediately notice how many times I’ve used words like “I”, “and”, or “but”. Then I have to go back and fix it all, but it ends up sounding just as bad anyway.
So, I shy away from making anymore vows to post more regularly. It’s not as rewarding to me as work is now, therfore I don’t feel this emptiness if I don’t get around to getting my daily happenings down for posterity — only guilt. Just as I discovered a way to work exercising back into my schedule, though, I’d like to get back to jotting down important events in my life. If only I could find the time to get out the important things from the past three months like weddings and vacations I might lessen my present guilt enough to move on with new, mundane stuff. But until I write about things like wedding speeches and trips to Chicago, I won’t feel right about blogging my petty complaints about coworkers or my latest crossword puzzle successes.
I’ve been keeping up with the biking so far. I even lengthened the route a little to make it a more balanced ride; now, I ride along the Schuylkill River for two or three miles before heading North to cut through Wissahickon Park (credit to Tim for the idea). The ride takes the same amount of time as before, since I basically traded a few extra miles for a more balanced ride.
The new route gives me a nice warm-up along the bike path to start, plus it combines the vertical height of my commute into two convenient hills. The first climbs from the river to Ridge Ave. before dumping me down into the Wissahicon Valley. From there it’s yet another climb, this time back out of the valley, to Germantown Avenue. Then it’s only a few more miles and hills along Willow Grove Ave. to the office.
So far there hasn’t been any noticable change in my ability, and I sure as hell haven’t invested any more money into the venture though a trip to REI is on my list of things to do. I’m confident that I’ll surprise myself by arriving at work 20 minutes early one day at which point I’ll run to the bathroom mirror, tear off my shirt and find that I’m completely ripped.
Today my commute took a little over an hour, a time that can definitely be improved upon if I don’t stop to pick un-scratched lottery tickets off the grass again. (And no, they weren’t winners.)
There’s definitely something to be said for working out again even after only two rides and last week’s slow jog to Connicelli Honda. The tangible results go beyond health and looks, and are much more immediate: I feel healthier. My muscles have a dull, satisfying ache and I fall right asleep. I also eat healthier; some people use working out as an excuse to eat whatever they want — and I’m certainly not slighting the weight-maintainers for that, I’ll still go out for a night of drinking or have a burger over the weekend — but personally I find myself ordering more salads and drinking less soda than I ordinarily would. Yes, this is only week two of focusing on a healthier lifestyle but it feels really, really great.
So, I’ve got to integrate the idea into my day a little better… and I really should remember my helmet next time… and there are a few supplies I could use if I break my rule about investing too quickly in crackpot workout schemes… but:
I biked to work today.
I know, I know, working out for only the second time in seven days doesn’t make me He-Man, and I’m well aware that it’s hardly the Health Nut that I’ve proclamed to be in the past. Kiss it.
At least I know my limitations when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. When I go to the store I don’t buy junk food, I just don’t (usually). It’s a little difficult with tailgating because I like to run the gamut with snacks but having them around the house afterwards is a recipe for disaster. Also, there’s this gym problem I have — like most people I can’t seem to find the time to squeeze it in. Every night I pledge to get up early and exercise before work, and every morning I vow just as quickly to go after work — sometimes even going so far as to bring a change of clothes with me — only to use my spare time to crunch out a few more lines of HTML. Even now as I type in a cloud of my own funk, I’m having trouble tearing myself away from my computer to shower in the downstairs apartment. There are always at last three things more important than working out and showering, all of which involve the computer in some way and more often than not involve Newgrounds in some way.
So the Great Commuting Experiment is my latest idea. It hinges on a few external factors, such as cooperation from the weather and rides home with Tim, but for now it looks like it’ll continue to be a nice ride as long as I solve the frozen-toe problem. I definitely plan on improving my time of an hour and and a half for the 10 mile trip as this was pretty much a test run. On the first hill I felt my first tinge of doubt but eventually got my ass in gear, and I forgot my helmet, realizing this only after I was past the halfway point which freaked me the hell out. Not exactly a crowning achievement, though definitely a worthy stepping stone.
Hopefully in the Spring it will be less of a pain in the ass and a lot more fun. Until then, I press on.