Today, Tara and The Kid ran down to Target to get him some more clothes. While they were gone, I decided it would be a good time to take a bit of a bike ride. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my current condition into account.
Due to weather, businesses at work, and other factors I’ve been missing a lot of my lunch-time walks the last month or two. Since these walks have been my main fitness activity of late, my conditioning has dropped from pretty good when I was doing karate regularly in Bartlett. But, it has dropped much further than I’d realized.
I left the house, and took a couple of turns to what I thought was a fairly level road – at least until I realized I was having to pulse my breaks to keep me at a speed I was comfortable with (I might have even speeding, or close to it). But then the road started up hill, and I started feeling it.
I found my way out to a main street and decided I was tired enough already (about 10 minutes of riding, only about 5 climbing a moderate hill) that I needed to turn back. Two blocks before reaching our road, I turned onto a different road hoping for a less steep climb. I think it was, but it was longer (obviously since I needed to cover the same total elevation change) and about half way from the intersection to home, I gave up and walked the rest of the way home.
This is frustrating when I think about how the last couple of summers in Bartlett I would often go out and ride for an hour or more. Of course, Bartlett is much flatter than RB, and I was, as I mentioned above, in better shape.
I’m still planning on either walking or biking to the bus station once The Kid is off school. But I may have to go to the walking plan since the trip home would require a significant hill climb – and the trip to the stop might or might not take a hill climb depending on which route I chose.
