I hope this blog finds you doing well. It leaves my fingers on a beautiful fall evening the day after the 1st frost of the fall. For you almanacers out there, it occurred on October 2 this year. This frost only occurred in the outlying areas. That means for all of the city folks, your impatienses are safe for another two weeks. For those of us who live in the upper Fall Creek Valley, we know that the possibility of frost in the “outlying areas” means to put on a jacket and go out and glean your garden because the fat lady is about to sing. So I wasn't surprised last night on my bike ride to see all of the neighbors out picking the last of the peppers, the green tomatoes, and a few peppers. Yes, in Ingalls, the garden party is over.
I have mentioned my bike rides from time to time during my blogs. Yet, I haven't used bike riding as the main theme during the past year of blog writing, even though two activities have coincided. Bike riding started a year ago last July and the first blog in this format was September 24. I haven't written about bike riding because I am always suspicious of people who extol the virtues of exercise. "I run 20 miles a day and I love it" "I have never felt better in my life." This is as they are limping out of the doctor's office after receiving a cortisone injection.
I think that most exercise is a fad; Tae Bo a fad, jazzercise a fad, shake weights a fad, weighted hula hoops a fad, (I looked this one up) the face bra sadly a fad. Link to the face bra http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-415610/Would-wear-face-bra.html While biking has had a really good run, any garage sale next May will have more than one Schwinn or Huffy looking for a new home. Then the next level of biking, takes the fadness to an entire new level; $1500 bikes, spandex shorts and shaving your legs. So last summer, when I decided that my theory of exercise maybe incorrect, I decided that if I rode my huffy for 800 miles, it would be safe to go out and purchase a better bike.
Oh great guru what was your previous insight on exercising? I am not very proud of it, but I had a theory that I only had so many heartbeats left. So rather than go rushing to my quota through exercise, I was prepared to go to low and slow to the end. That wasn't working great. Last July I started riding that Huffy and had literally ridden the wheels off it. Receiving a 200 mile reprieve, at 600 miles a very nice $600 bike was purchased right before Memorial Day and a thousand miles later, it has been a very good summer.
Every time I go out for a bike ride the same vision flashes through my mind. Sometime during the ride, my mind flashes to a vision of a ten year old, riding a bike around a suburban block endlessly. My mom had a nursing friend, Terri Oiler, a single mom with three kids about our age. Mom and Terri in an effort to save their kids from the farm and the burbs respectively did a kid exchange over a couple of weeks for my tenth and eleventh year. For me that meant an above ground swimming pool for six hours a day. For some reason, it wasn't safe to get in before 11:00 a.m. By 5:00 p.m. with bogus claims that my skin would stay pruney if I didn't get out now, I was forced out of water world. I went straight to a Schwinn with banana seat and sissy bar and rode until forced to come in to eat at 6:00.
"Why do you ride like that honey? Look at your face; its all red. You’re burning up."
"That's the only way I can keep cool. The wind feels good and keeps me cool."
It happens every bike ride. No matter where my mind is at the beginning, sometime during the next 45 minutes, I'll be that 10 year old again; zooming around the four corners, seeing how far I can ride hands free, trying to pop a wheelie, the wind rushing through my hair and best of all the 6 foot skid mark on nice white concrete.
Weird huh?
But probably not as weird as the face bra.
Take care
Roger
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