That's not rude, it's a literary reference. Who says an English degree is worthless? I just used it to get away with saying both "sucks" and "ass."
So I had a dentist appointment yesterday (wow, these blog things really are filled with self-indulgent minutiae, aren't they?) and since my better half needed the car to get to her place of employment, I figured heck, break out the bike. It's only a few miles, right? Pulled the folder off the hooks, pumped some air into the sagging tires, hoisted my sagging spare tire aboard, and off we went. Sunny day, temps in the mid/upper 20s, no wind. About as idyllic as you're going to get in Iowa in January.
A couple miles later, I'm at said dentist's office, leaned over my bike, wheezing and hacking like a two-pack-a-day smoker, just about ready to heave my breakfast. Oh yeah, THAT'S what an asthma attack feels like! Under normal circumstances, my asthma goes pretty much undetected... but give it some cold, dry air (check), a bit of exertion (check check) and a very out-of-shape body (check check check) and kerblammo. By the time my appointment was over, I'd pulled myself together enough to ride home, but I had a nasty rattle in my lungs for the rest of the day.
This off-season stuff is no fun. No fun at all.
2 comments:
Could be worse. In college my husband was playing football with some dorm friends in January, and part of one lung spontaneously collapsed. It reinflated on its own after a couple of weeks, but he said it was pretty painful for a while.
A mid-west winter is a tough time of year for cyclists! The weather is too lousy to stay in shape by means of daily rides (or the road is too ice covered to allow a hard effort).
My commute home from work tonight was an example of the challenges typical of this season..
To start with, the temperature was 21F. Not so bad, really, but the wind was blowing out of the northwest at 15 to 25 mph (and I think it was really 25mph with periodic drops to 15mph). Not fun enough? Well, there were snow flurries coming down, so vision was reduced, and you couldn't tell where the road was slick and where it wasn't. I was riding along, working my butt off just to make 9 mph into the wind (the bike sits outside at work all day, so the grease and tires get stiff).
On the plus side, only my fingertips were getting numb, which isn't too bad! The sun stays up longer now too, which is welcome if you have to fix a flat in that weather.
Still, I'll be quite happy when April finally rolls around and the weather gets a bit more sane!
Steve in Peoria
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