Deciding to Ride
I sometimes am faced with the decision of how soon to resume riding after being sick. The sickness began last Friday when my sinus was invaded by something they did not like. My nose started running like Niagara Falls and sneezing 5 or 6 times in a row was common. By Friday night I was feeling miserable and had to resort to my elephant tusk look with rolled up tissue paper sticking out of each nostril. To top it off I decided Friday to look at a Jeep Wrangler in Katy to replace the one I sold on last Monday. Sitting in the dealer showroom sneezing and blowing my nose we purchased the Jeep and proceeded to drive back to Kingwood. What a mistake. We should’ve stayed in a motel overnight and driven home on Saturday. All of the people who drove one car to work that morning drove two back home. Traffic was horrific and reminded me why I retired. We finally got home and I slowly made it inside. Saturday was not much different but Sunday I started to turn the corner.
Sunday evening we drove to the Greyhound bus terminal in downtown Houston to pick up our daughter and son-in-law who came from Dallas. I was not sneezing anymore but a cough moved in.
Monday I was doing much better but decided not push it to soon and did not ride.
Today I felt much better and the cough was rare. No more running nose so I figured it was time to go for a ride. As I left home at 10:58 with the temperature around 75 I knew I made a good choice. I was able to pedal with effort when necessary and the breeze coming through my long sleeve jersey felt great. I didn’t want to overdo it and rode a slightly shorter version of the “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” route for a total of 29.77 miles. I stopped at the Huffman Chevron to rest, eat and drink. After 30 minutes or so I headed home for the last 11 miles. I was encouraged by the average speed I built up. I topped out at 15.5 mph and held it until about 27.4 miles when it slowly dropped down to 15.3 as I made my way home in Kingwood.
Several other bikers were out today. I saw four women on the Lake Houston Causeway going west as I went east and later a man was riding on Atascocita Shores Drive going south, opposite from me.
I thought the weather was going to be cooler than it turned out. I wore a long sleeve jersey but should’ve wore a short sleeve one with 83 degrees when I finished at 1:30.
Tonight or early tomorrow a cool front is supposed to move through. There is a small chance of rain. Not sure if I will ride.
October miles are now 606.67 and 6138 miles for the year.
Daylight savings time ends Sunday morning. Not sure how this will impact my biking. So far the warm weather has been sticking around.
Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS
