Exploring
Month: July 2019
The Boy and Papa
This morning, the Boy was showing Papa his newest truck design as I made breakfast for everyone.
A few minutes earlier, he was explaining how his friend N has designed his dream truck, and it, the Boy explained, would be completely illegal. “He had spikes on his tires! Big spikes! That would destroy the road!” he explained incredulously.
When the Boy was walking Papa through his design, I smiled: it had a wrecking ball, several guns, and various other accessories that would make it rather difficult to drive on public roads without drawing unwanted police attention.
Monday
The day started with a ride back up to the north of the county to pick up my car.
I’d mapped the route on Strava, and it really didn’t seem so bad: 28km with nothing too intimidating in terms of ascents. But I’m not the cyclist I was 15 years ago. My legs aren’t what they used to be; my heart and lungs labor under what would have been the slightest effort at my fittest. And so when I hit the segment some Strava user named “Cleveland St. Climb – West,” it completely kills me.
It’s really pathetic. Look at this thing:
A mere half-kilometer that rises a mere 35-meters, with an average gradient of 8%. I finish in 3:08, with an average speed of 8.7 km/h. Of all the Stava users who have tackled that climb, I am the 386th fastest.
Details from my fitness tracker show just what a trial it was for me:
Ridiculously high pulse for a ridiculously slow speed. But I’m 46; I haven’t done serious exercise in years. I shouldn’t be surprised, and I’m not. But of course, I am.
When I got home, I did to the yellow bell bushes along our driveway what the ride did to me:
