10/1 - 12 miles (
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118356071)
10/3 - 38 miles (
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118867158 and
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118986441)
10/4 - 41 miles (
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/119091404 and
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/119210766)
10/5 - 38 miles (
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/119302377 and
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/119406089)
10/6 - 39 miles (
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/119491604 and
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/119588780)
========================================================
168/400 (42%)
End of Car Free Week Day #6. Checked out the bike last night and the chain was really loud when I spun the pedals. Inspected it closer and wow, there was a lot of crap in and on the chain. I guess 2 days of rainy cycling will do that. Cleaned and regreased it and it sounded nice and new again.
Woke up this morning and I could barely move. It was tough even getting out of bed. Fortunately after a nice warm shower I felt much better, so I get dressed up and ready to go. Get outside and wow it is cold. At first I was thinking that it had to be less than 50 degrees out, but after a mile of cycling and I still wasn't warming up, it became evident that it was much colder than that. My Garmin 500 was still in the process of losing its residual heat from being at room temperature all night, but finally around mile 6 it hit a low point: 37 degrees. Possibly the coldest I've ever cycled in before. Oddly enough my muscles felt better than yesterday and I once again was able to break 14mph on the way into work.
Work was interesting. While I was able to cycle better than yesterday, it still hurt far more to walk around. In fact I could only walk really slow and my left leg wouldn't exactly operate as smooth as it used to. The "spring" I had developed in my step over the last year was definitely gone.
So I began running out of groceries. In particular I was completely out of potassium and protein. Because of this I decided that today on the way home I would go grocery shopping on the bike. I had a choice to make; do I go to Wegmans or do I go to Tops? Wegmans is 10 miles away from home, and adds a mile to the commute. Tops is 0.5 miles away from home and directly on my normal route. Logistically Tops would make more sense... but I don't like Tops. When I began my weight loss journey I used to always go to Tops, but that created some really bad habits. They always stack crap food out in front and the produce selection was terrible; I ended up gaining so much weight going to Tops. When I decided to lose weight I switched exclusively to Wegmans because they have a much nicer and healthier food selection and better produce. So this was a tough choice? Do I add a mile and risk carting groceries 10 miles home? Or do I take the easy way and just walk to Tops later? I ended up going to Wegmans.
Shopping was interesting. I've never had to shop for groceries given a limited cargo capacity before. Suddenly the choices I'm making are much more important than ever before. I started evaluating food for its nutrient per weight/volume ratio. Things like bread were immediately disqualified... too bulky, too easy to squish in my panniers. I ended up loading up on dense proteins like ham and cheese, and at the last minute I decided to throw in one bag of spinach. Even though spinach is big and bulky and doesn't contain much calories, it's a staple of my diet for its vitamin and fibre content. For the first time ever, I actually ended up with only one item of carbs, simply because of the fact that there really aren't too many complex carbs that have a high calorie-to-volume ratio. I could have loaded up on simple sugars I suppose, but I don't really eat many of those. Unfortunately even though I was being very careful about the grocery volume, I still ended up getting just a little bit too much. I couldn't really fit everything in my panniers comfortably, so I had to take out my cable and U-lock, and wrap them around my seatpost to make room. Even still, There was still barely enough room for everything.
Made it home with no issues. Again, surprisingly faster than yesterday. This route actually ended up being much safer than my normal route too, so I think I'm going to end up taking it from now on. Honestly I have no idea why I disregarded this route when I first decided to go bicycle commuting. I think maybe I was frightened by the 19 miles and decided that was the highest distance I was willing to go... but in the grand scheme of things, 20 safer miles is a much better proposition when it comes down to it. By the time I got home the bag of spinach had ended up popping, so I've got to make sure I finish that off in the next 2 days now. Other than that there were no incidents, and I'm feeling like this week has been a magnificent success so far. Just one more day to go, 40 miles, and then I can finally take a day off. If all goes well I'll be finishing the week at 210 miles, a new high record for me. My previous best is 179, so I'm only 9 miles behind.
I've decided that the cycling year is rapidly coming to a close. This mornings 37 degree ride, while brisk, was still very very cold. I was well-layered up too; there's not much more I could add beside a ski mask without severely limiting my mobility. I imagine once it drops below 32 I won't be able to tolerate long rides anymore. Probably by the end of this month I'll be done commuting. Certainly no later than the Daylight Saving Time switch; the daylight hours are getting too short now. Because of this realisation I've decided to finalize my goals for this year:
1) Bike 2500 miles. Currently at 2117 miles, so I have 383 to go. It's possible I'll hit that before the end of the month, but it's more likely I'll finish that up in the beginning of November.
2) Complete 22 bicycle commutes. Basically an average year of mine, minus vacations and mandatory business trips, results in 44 full weeks of driving to work, which works out to 220 days. So 22 commutes works out to 10% of my yearly driving. If tomorrow goes as planned I'll hit 19 commutes, so I'll only have 3 more to go before the end of the month.
3) Bike to Rochester and back. This was my original century idea; I abandoned it in favor of a more flat century to ensure that I completed it, but now that I'm more comfortable with climbing I think I am willing to take this challenge on again.
4) Do the 40 mile "hill" route I have planned. This one I may do this weekend, but I may do the century in place of this if the weather is beautiful. This route has about 6 giant climbs on it, and one monstrous descent. I'm very nervous about the descent, and one of the climbs. But I'd like to go out with a bang. A bonus of this route is that it's gorgeous; if the fall foliage has turned red and yellow it will make for some spectacular sights.