Oh.my.gosh! I cycled to work today and I'm toast! It's 14 miles to my office from my house with most of the ride allowing me to enjoy the breathtaking scenery of the Cleveland Metroparks. But here's a few things I learned today during my 28-mile round trip:
1. When it's 45 degrees outside, don't forget to wear those little booties that go over your running shoes! Running shoes breathe...yeah, great in the summer, but it also means they have those lovely little "vent" holes that basically turns the shoe into air conditioning. Not wise when it's frigid outside.
2. Leave a little earlier. At 7:00 a.m., there's limited traffic. At 8:00 a.m., it turns out for a free-for-all, encountering drivers with coffee in one hand and texting with the other . Whatever happened to share the road?! The funny part was that I made it to work EARLIER than I normally do when I drive. Go figure!
3. When the Weather Channel app says "wind advisory", what they really mean is holy-crap-hold-tight-to-those-handlebars! I was exhausted just from trying to stay vertical and keep some kind of forward movement. At one point, I just laughed at the red light thinking about how ridiculous I must look to the motorists beside me.
4. And my favorite lesson of the day is to hide the bike so coworkers can't make asinine remarks like: it's going to rain, how will you get home? or I could never do that (ride to work), I have (insert lame excuse here).
The best part of cycling today was the ride home when I ran into another female cyclist. When we both stopped at the red light, she asked me if I had any salt tablets. I'd like to think she thought I was not a pleasure-seeking-cyclist, but maybe a more serious, athletic type (hey, it's my delusion!). I told her I didn't because I just had a short 14-miler today. That brief smugness kept me peddling for another couple of miles!
Today's guilty pleasure: singing out loud while riding my bike because no one can hear that I was not born with the gift of music!
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