A Day Without Cycling

When you grow accustomed to a routine each day, it's tough to break away and do something different. We human beings are, if nothing else, creatures of habit.

Our weather, snow, drizzle, and ice, although necessary to the earth to help it prepare for spring work, can frustrate our best efforts to maintain our routines, whether indoor or outdoor activities are involved. That's how it was yesterday. We've been experiencing those aforementioned weather conditions and so it meant that the routine had to be adjusted.



For the last several months I have been back to riding the exercise bike on a daily basis. Top distance per ride has been sixteen miles, and probably could have been longer but at some point you have to get on with your work. The top total distance for a single day stands at around twenty-two miles. The goal is forty-five. I'll get there.

An extra early start to the day yesterday was necessary to allow extra drive time to get into town from the countryside. I had forgotten, from years past, how much a person becomes reliant on the adrenaline one experiences when exercising. Without that morning adrenaline yesterday, my body decided that if I wasn't going to push it to its limits it would limit my activity. By ten o'clock yesterday morning I was ready for a nap. I finally felt more awake later in the day, right before it was time to go to bed. At least I slept better.

This morning was almost a repeat of yesterday, except that I was ready to wake extra early and I managed to get a five-mile ride in before having to go out and face near zero temperatures, several inches of snow to scoop, and vehicles to start. I only managed to get into one of the vehicles. The doors on the other one were frozen shut. They probably still are.

I'm sneaking up on ten o'clock again this morning, but I have a lot more energy than yesterday. The temps aren't expected to get out of the teens, the roads are clear of most snow and the drifts from last night, but they're slick with that frozen drizzle from yesterday still clinging to them. The top speed on the highway coming in this morning was thirty-eight miles an hour, and that was a bit fast for some.

So, I'm following a new routine today, again, and the going is slow, but not as slow as it is when I have to go a day without cycling. A day without cycling (or exercise in general) is an unproductive one. Let's hope today is better. Walking through ankle deep snow is good exercise too, and the cold air really energizes you, but I'll take cycling in warm weather, or indoors, any day over scooping snow, scraping windows, and digging out of a ditch.