Moving Meditations, First Ride Of The Season

I’m not one for posting more than once per day, but today was particular… Anyone who’s been following my blog for a while is aware that I frequently posted about my bicycling milestones, all through out the summer and fall last year. Given that temperatures hit the high teens today, the whole family took advantage of the warm weather to spend some time outside. During this time, I opened up my garage and cleaned my SUV… You know, typical warm weather stuff.

One of the things I did was grease up the chain on my bike and inflate the tires to the proper pressure. Once that was done, I couldn’t resist taking a quick spin around the block to try the ol’ girl out. I was wearing a hoodie and jeans, completely unstretched and unprepared. But I managed 1.5 kilometres in just a few seconds over 5 minutes. I spent the early afternoon running some errands and picking up my Diabetic supplies, all the while thinking about my bike. Once I got home, I couldn’t resist changing into fitness gear and going for a more substantial ride. Especially since a snowstorm is calling for tonight.

My wife was taking advantage of a quick nap while the baby was sleeping and Nathan was occupied, so I threw in the earbuds, slapped on my helmet and took a ride. 10 kilometres in 37 minutes is far from my best time, and I can admit that I didn’t really do any cross-training through the winter months. But it felt nice to get out and peddle, listen to some rocking’ tunes and enjoy my first outing since snow hit the ground.

I don’t know if a snowstorm will hit as expected, as it’s still 14 degrees out and we’re slipping into the wee hours of the late evening. But once this weather starts holding permanently, I’m looking forward to training to reach my goal of 200 kilometres. This is the goal I had for last year, but I only ever reached about 75 kilometres before it started getting too cold to be out. I’ll try not to be a constant pain in the ass and post about nothing but cycling. But I intend on keeping track of my progress and hopefully reaching the goals I fell short on last year. ☯