Saturday, February 19, 2011

Some Cycling Observations (Again).......

It is apparently mating (or suicide, and no they aren't necessarily the same thing) season for skunks. We've seen a gazillion of them on the road in the past couple of weeks, and I saw/smelled a couple on my bike ride today. There's a limit to how long one can hold one's breath while riding a bicycle. I suppose there's a limit to how long one can hold one's breath period.

I left home with no particular route in mind, but with the goal of arriving at the baseball field for our high school team's first scrimmage game of the season. I didn't plan in advance, I wasn't sure how far I still had to go at any given point, and I was only 2 minutes late for the start of the game. I thought that was pretty darn good.

My favorite quote of the day (perhaps the week or even the month) came at the game. Because it was a scrimmage, they didn't show the score. The scoreboard showed only balls, strikes, and outs. I heard a woman near us ask her husband, "What's the score?" His answer: "A lot to one." It's probably obvious that we had the one. Seconds after that, Hubby texted me and asked the score. I shamelessly used the phrase, but when he picked me up, I gave full credit for the quote. Well, as much credit as I can give to a man whose name I don't know.

If a car passes dangerously close to me while I'm riding my bike, and the car bears one of Georgia's bazillion specialty plates, it has been my observation that the license plate will be one of two kinds: a disabled person or a Georgia educator.

It is possible to drink 56 ounces of water and 32 ounces of Gatorade G2 and not go to the bathroom. And it wasn't even hot today.

Just because it's February doesn't mean sunscreen is unnecessary.

LWP and I were sitting right behind homeplate at the game today when my "godson" was batting. He hit a foul ball that went straight up in the air and over the net. It was like slow motion, watching that ball come down. I was frozen in place, as were LWP and the pregnant lady sitting right next to us. The ball hit the table where the pregnant lady was sitting, and when I could finally speak again, I looked at LWP and said, "My bike!"  She was worried about being hit on the noggin by her own son, everyone else at the field was worried about the pregnant lady, and I was worried about my bike being crushed by a foul ball.

Today was the first time I can remember averaging over 14 mph on a ride of 20+ miles. I may have done it in Iowa back in 2004 when I was in better shape, but I'm not sure. I averaged 14 mph one day coming home from school, but it's harder to sustain over a longer ride. Today's ride was almost 35 miles. And it couldn't possibly have been a tailwind for the entire ride.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

Watch out for those skunks if they're not already roadkill. They're notorious for carrying rabies!