Cycling while tired

Juneathon day 11. I am very tired, and really don't want to ride my bike to work. I actually looked up how bad the transit disruption was before I got out of bed, to see if it would be possible to do a non-bike commute. It's not, which is a good thing considering that it's Juneathon and I didn't get up in time to run. So I got up and rode my bike to work, but perhaps a little slower than I should have. Now it is time to go home, and I still don't want to ride. So no extra credit on Juneathon today even though I'm riding twice. Sleepy = lamest post ever.

Juneathon day 10: well, I certainly won't do *that* again

It's Wednesday so that must make it a yoga day. But London tube employees have gone on strike, so while I do respect their right to strike (though honestly, pay raises for less hours? in this economy? I wish.) I also knew I would be undertaking a cycle commute today.

Last night was spent fixing a vegan-brunch-for-dinner (which deserves and shall have it's own separate post) and finally getting the rack put on my bike. I get up a little late this morning but head to yoga anyway. Definitely a nice ride at this time of day (pre-7am): streets are quiet, traffic is light, etc. I have never ridden to this yoga studio before, and I miss the mark completely and have to stop in Piccadilly Circus and cheat with the phone-map. Finally I get there and am ready to start practice at 7:30 - a half hour later than normal. Monday there were tons of new people in class but they seem to have gone, as it's just the regulars again. Hard to say, though, maybe those new people will become regulars once the strike is over.

I do my 5 sun salutation As and only 3 Bs because I'm already warm from the bike ride and also because I'm late. I get up to Prasarita Padottanasana and Brett comes over to help me. 'Set your feet wider,' he says. 'No, wider. Wider.' And then he's holding my hips and I'm leaning forward, forward, forward, and there's nothing to catch me, but I've got my head about 3 inches from the ground. Wow. I've always wondered how people get their heads on the ground; I always thought I'd just never be that flexible, but suddenly I can see it. My ankle is burning where I broke it once - clearly still not that strong. When I'm finished with the pose we talk for a while about letting the breath take you into the pose and remembering to lean forward over your toes instead of backwards over your heels, and then he decides I'm ready to add the beginning of the Primary Series, utthita hasta padangusthasana (there are actually 4 parts, one leg holding your toe standing up, one leg holding your toe nose to knee, one leg holding your toe out to the side, one leg that holds itself up).

Then I hop back on my bike and go the rest of the way to work. Unfortunately having gone to yoga puts me in central London at rush hour, and even though there are loads of other bikers around (more than I ever remember) there are also loads of people who don't normally drive and aren't used to watching out for cyclists. One guy yells at me because he's stopped at a light really close to the edge of the lane and my handlebar touches his mirror ever so gently as I go past. Really? In the fight between car and bike, mister, your hatchback will win. Again I'm kind of turned around having started from a part of London I normally try to avoid on my bike and it takes me an hour ten just to get to work and it's already 9:30 so I scramble through a shower and into my office only 15 minutes late in the end, and then one of my coworkers asks me if I've swum to work.

I've got to ride home again so I'm pre-emptively giving myself an extra credit for today's Juneathon.

Juneathons: 10/10 (+2 extra credit)

Errand girl goes Juneathon (day 7) in the rain

Meg had to pick something up from her office today, and we'd decided earlier in the weekend (Friday, while it was still sunny) to ride our bikes to get it. This afternoon we had been through rain and sun and rain and were back on sun so we decided to go. Which is when the rain came back, of course. But because I am a dedicated Juneathoner off we went and luckily the rain stopped again. That to me is one of the points of Juneathon - to create a space in your life to be active where you might not be otherwise. Because honestly once we got started riding I was happy. After picking up from work we took a little spin through Spitalfields and bought a new rack for my bike - I got one for Christmas but have not been able to make it fit my bike. They say 'just stretch it, it will fit' but I am telling you this thing does not fit. I tried for an hour. So anyway I haven't put the rack on my bike, but since there is a threat of a tube strike this week I really wanted to get my bike set up so I can ride if I need to later this week. Then we went to the grocery. I wasn't prepared enough to get ingredients for brunch-as-dinner tonight, but I will make something from the book Tracy won in JogBlog's competition later this week so I can send the book on to Tracy soonish. Exciting Sunday, I know.

Juneathons: 7/7

Vietnam, part 0.1

Even though Meg and I keep a pretty good travel journal when we travel, we haven't put any of it online from our Vietnam trip yet. And I always get shit from people about the low number of photographs I put out there - but honestly it's intentional as I fully subscribe to the belief that "the difference between professional photographers and amateurs is that the former show fewer photgraphs." (OK, I can't remember the exact quote or who said it, but you get the idea.)

Anyway, we'll put some stories up soon but we had an amazing active vacation, and a few photos, with more to come, are here.

Reverse brick with absurdly long transition

Not really a brick workout, but I am proud to say I both ran (for the first time in practically forever) and rode my bike to work this morning. Short run, but the goal of it was really just to prove to myself I can still run since the last few have been crap (some so crap I won't even write about them here). And I think something's not quite right with my bike - yesterday it derailed for no reason so I couldn't even ride my bike to work and today I felt like I was mashing away hard for not a lot of result - but I did it. And I was even on time.

Anyway, I'm back from vacation. I've missed everyone, I'm totally behind on both training and hearing about y'all, but I hope to be back on track and caught up soon.

Challenged

On dailymile I was challenged to do an increasing workout. Since Fridays are a short day in my office during the summer, I decided today would be a good day to do it. I rode my bike in but before riding it home (2 bikes) I decided I would run 5 miles (1 run) and do some strength & core training (3 sets of pushups, 4 sets of lunges, 5 sets of ab work). I did everything I set out to do with the exception of actually completing the 5 miles.

On my way in this morning I made a wrong turn (surprise, surprise) and had to carry my bike down the steps near Waterloo Bridge. Something funky was going on with my left knee, and every time I'd go to step down with my right foot and have to bend the left leg, there would be a shooting pain and I'd have to clutch at the handrail to keep from falling down the steps and throwing myself and my bike into the A road at the bottom.

It feels fine walking around, but after 1 mile running today I couldn't do any more for pain and fear of falling into the Thames where the beautiful but mean swans would peck me to death. I walked for a half mile thinking I might be able to walk it off but no dice, so I walked the mile and a half back to my office to get my bike so I can complete the rest of the challenge.

Bicycle navigation

The picture below (apologies for the craptastic image editing but if you click on it I think you can see it better) shows my morning commute (in red) and my evening commute (in blue) from yesterday.

It also clearly (well, if you can actually see the image properly) shows the differentce between a just-about-one-hour commute that makes bicycling faster than taking the Underground, and a 1 hour 20 minute commute that makes it much slower, and also more dangerous as I find myself in central London swerving around bendy busses and pedicabs in the prime pre-theatre hour.

This happens to me all the time. Somewhere around Parliament Square I can't seem to go the good way in the evening. I'm learning lots about central London, though.

15.2 miles, 1:22:23.

I intended to get up this morning to run 4 miles. I very carefully set my alarm to the proper time, allowing 10 minutes of snoozing. And then I went to sleep. Notice that no where in here did I TURN MY ALARM ON. Meg's alarm went off around the time I should have been getting home. Oops. Hoping to get home in time to make it up to myself tonight.

What's Behind Door #4?

My office has showers, which makes the whole bike-to-work thing actually feasible for me. Mostly they are quite nice but this morning I went into a new one that I hadn't tried yet. Note to self: sometimes, it's better to just go with something you know is ok, rather than try something different in the hopes that it will be better. For example, shower #4, which has a dribble for water pressure and no hot water. Which of course I didn't find out until I was completely unpacked and nude, so here's me shivering and staring at my naked ass in the mirror because it didn't even get warm enough to steam up an unventilated room.

But before that, there's the commute. Reelights fitted yesterday make an at-first-annoying-later-soothing-and-rhythmic noise every time they go past the magnets. Except for the front one, which actually goes thwap thwap thwap until I look down and find that I haven't tightened the Pitlock properly and the light is pointing back at me and flashing only occasionally. Luckily today for the first time I've remembered to put my toolkit in my bag so I pull over and dig it out and tighten the nut. I also forgot to switch the Garmin back to "cycling" after Saturday's run so the display wasn't showing the things I'm used to looking at while cycling. I turn my head to check out the pace and try to convert that into mph in my head while riding and nearly drive myself into the back of a bus before skidding out and getting excited because I used the correct hand to brake with even though things are backwards in this country.

11.9 miles, 1:09:54.

Run Bulldog Run is running (ha ha) a competition wherein you can win a copy of Dean Karnazes book. Head on over to his blog if you're interested in winning your very own 50 in 50.

Cycling Commutes 6 and 7: Stay out of my lane!

Here are some things a bike lane is not:

• extra turning space for when you can't get your big-ass car to turn around and are already blocking all the traffic lanes
• a place for you to creep around the other cars stopped at the light so you can make your turn quicker
• a passing lane
• parking, however temporary your stay
  
• a good place to try to flag down a bus/taxi/hooker
• the starting line for the new "smash the biker" extreme sport you're trying to start

Cycling Commutes 4 and 5

So last week I rode my bike in on Wednesday, then unexpectedly worked until after dark. I don't have a light on my bike yet, and am not really comfortable with my routes yet, so I left my bike in the garage at work. Thursday's plan was to ride home. There was a big announcement at work and then a meet-and-greet with some new colleagues. There were drinks. I left my bike in the garage again. Finally Friday I managed to be out at a decent hour and rode home, taking in a few extra miles and hills to explore some new areas/routes, just because I could (I love half-day Fridays, even when I don't leave until 4!). About 19 miles, 1:45-ish.

Nothing active per se this weekend - Saturday met some (American) friends for brunch, then Brighton Pride, Sunday went to the Red Bull Air Races. Wanted to ride bikes but rain threatening so smashed ourselves onto the tube instead. Really wished I'd had my bike.

Quick 13 mile ride in this morning. Looking forward to riding home. Who would have thought, when I bought my bike, I'd end up like Zanne and accidentally stop running because I like my bike so much? Still, I have a half-marathon (aka a Trisko) on the schedule in October and maybe I should get with the training. Tomorrow. Fo' really reals.

Some crappy personal stuff going on that I'm not really ready to talk about but that may involve me being far from my bike for a few days. Definitely would need to run to maintain some semblance of sanity. Keep Meg's aunt (and her husband and three kids) in your thoughts.

Cycling Commute #3: Free from data-geekery

I left my Garmin in my office yesterday so no data on today's ride, but just a sense that I was more comfortable and faster. I wanted to take the Farringdon route but forgot you can't turn right on Essex road so ended up going via Bank again but without the mishap of a wind through the City alleys. Near Westminster I misjudged a roundabout and got sworn at by a taxi driver but really was in no danger except from angry Londoners which is certainly safer than NYC denizens who would probably have chased me down after jumping out of the cab. Got to work on time (mostly) and at my desk by 9:20 even with getting coffee.

Cycling Commute #2: The long way home

After this mornings success it's time to head home. I decide to try to cut the riverbend jog off my route by going through the streets instead of following the river. I should have known this wouldn't work out in my favour when I missed the first turn and took a 2-mile detour. Next I discover that slightly more major streets and a little extra distance are actually my friends as I proceed to stop at every traffic light in west London. Well over an hour later I'm halfway home so I call Meg to tell her I won't be able to pick her up at her office because I'm taking so freaking long and put myself back on the river and speed towards home. I do learn a little lesson from the morning and go up via Farringdon or Barbican or somesuch instead of extra east via Old Street and the last 3 miles feel awesomely fast except that I am tired and scary hungry and also realising that right now I'm in no shape to do this AND run on the same day so it'll have to be either/or for a while. Then I came home and tried to email this post in but failed miserably so now it's the next day and I'm putting it up finally to try to hide the fact that I didn't run YET AGAIN today. And also I checked out my actual pace and the last 3 miles which felt good were actually really slow but my average moving pace was 8% slower in the evening than in the morning and I'm happy that I felt good considering it was 14% longer (yes, I'm being a data dork here.) 14.8 miles, 1:28:21

Cycling Commute #1: in which I feel awesome

After the weekend's drunken inaguration of Little Betty, this morning I decided to use her for more healthful pursuits and cycle to work. A bit of a late start and not the most efficient route left me getting to work at pushing 10am (oops) but I felt amazing. First of all, I had to ride right through the City at morning rush hour and I honestly haven't done a lot of city riding in my life so I'm not that comfortable with cars all around me. But I found several other bikers to follow and did not get hit, even by the guy driving the long flat open truck with wooden poles on it who acted like he was in a Mini. A few minor errors in navigation but I managed to not cross Putney Bridge. 13 miles and 1:20 later and I'm a rock star.

Inaugurating "The Littlest Betty": ...Pick more daisies and Monkeynuts

So Meg and I decided to go for a bike ride to get breakfast/brunch this "morning" (ok, 12:30) and on the advice of Krista decide on ...Pick More Daisies. We arrive, and except for the completely unnecessarily rude woman who yelled at us for taking her table when she went to the toilet (how were we to know when the hostess sent us to that table?) it was completely fine. Bloody Mary was disappointing - too much tomato juice and not enough Worchester or celery salt or Tobasco - but elsewise decent. They have Anchor Steam beer which Meg was happy about. I have huevos rancheros - decent except that the beans were too dry but still delich - and Meg has banana hotcakes and (underdone) streaky bacon.

Then we start walking around Crouch End and wind up in Kiss the Sky and then having dinner at MonkeyNuts (apparently MonkeyNuts is English for shells-on peanuts - who knew? - but they don't serve them there) for Brooklyn Lager (taste of home) and steaks (mine was underdone so I switched with Meg so we each had a slightly underdone steak instead of her having a perfectly done one and me having a ridiculously underdone one) and a toasted banana waffle sundae - completely unnecessary but YUM.

And then a bike ride home before it got too dark on the bikes. Loving the bike though I suspect I will be drenched after a 10-ish mile ride to work in this (English) heat.