Month: April 2014

I can’t imagine myself as a runner. I’ve never been good at it nor have I ever developed any desire to be good at it.

Instead, I like to bike. In part, it’s because when you get up a good head of speed and have a flat bit of road in front of you; you can just coast along and enjoy the ride. It’s also because there are some many gadgets and dohickeys that you can get for a bike that really appeals to the tech in me.

In any case, as the weather has been awful and I don’t get enough exercise elsewhere; I’ve been using our exercise bike at home. It’s a fancy model with all kinds of electronic whatchamacallits built in. I try to do 15-20 minutes every day[ref]Well…. I do take weekends off.[/ref] and on a good day I’ll get the bike to tell me I’ve gone nearly seven miles[ref]Once or twice, I actually got it to claim I’d gone over 7 miles![/ref]. Yesterday the weather was particularly fine and I had no pressing demands on my time. So I got my real bike out and went for a ride. I got myself onto the Cedar Valley River trail and just headed out. Initially, it kind of sucked[ref]A portion of the trail nearest to me goes past a local dump, nicknamed Mt. Trashmore and that portion of the trail reeks.[/ref] but I pushed past it and before long was really enjoying myself.

I’ve been on this trail before, but never gone all that far along it as I’ve had other commitments to draw me away. As my schedule was open, I just kept going and was soon past the areas I was familiar with. I was starting to feel a bit winded, but the day was particularly fine and the trail was lovely[ref]It also helped that I’d gotten past the Mt. Trashmore section and it didn’t reek any more.[/ref]; so I kept going and going. Though now I was drinking more from my water bottle and stopping to rest more frequently. Additionally all the tiny little hills on the trail were starting to feel like mountains and that’s when I realized I’d been out on my bike for over an hour and I wasn’t going to have enough ommph to be able to get back home. I called up my wife[ref]Hiya Sweetie![/ref] to see if she was back from her appointment and could come get me. As I’m actually writing this from home; you can safely imagine she was available. 🙂

After we were home (and I was rested[ref]By rested, I mean no longer gasping for air[/ref]), I mapped out where I’d biked and found I’d only gone about seven and a quarter miles over the course of an hour. A far cry from how well I thought I’d been doing on our exercise bike. So I guess what I’m saying is while I’m no runner; I can definitely relate to how sucking sucks. 😉

This post was inspired by Sucking Sucks, A Runners Tale.