I did it!

[dreamshark]

Every year it takes me a little longer to advance my physical fitness to the point where I can easily bike 5 miles, which is the distance from my house around the closest lake and back. First there was ice in the streets. Then it was raining all the time. Then it was nice for a couple of days but I was tired because I went for a walk the day before. I finally made it to my Level 1 Fitness Level last Saturday when I biked around the lake to bring minnehaha  a mask and a book, and I was barely even tired afterwards. 

Yay! I vowed to keep biking around the lake every day, or at least every other day.

Then the weather went into sauna mode. Ye Gods, is it hot and humid!  As the Strib Weather Guy says, you don't need a made up "Heat Index" when you have dew point. 60's is humid. 70's is tropical. 80's is life-threatening. The dew point has been hitting the high '70's for the last week. So I started going to bed earlier so I could get up at 7:30 and bike in the morning while it was still relatively cool. Yesterday at 7:30 it was already 81 fricking degrees, so abort that. Today it was only 74, and the dew point was down into the 60's - not even "tropical" yet.

So I actually got on my bike and rode around the lake. It wasn't bad at all. The concession stand has iced cold press coffee on tap in this weather, and if you prowl around enough you can usually find a table in the shade (tip: check out the hidden tables between the concession stand and the bandstand). And my favorite bench by the Peace Garden is usually available ever since the Japanese Lilac Tree overgrew into a bower and hid it from view completely, so I took another break there. Of course that means that by the time I got home the temp was well into the 80's, but now I've gotten my exercise for the day (or more likely, week) I feel totally justified hanging around in the AC all day. 

Comments

[spiderplanet]

Hooray for bicycle weather! That reminds me that I need to look at used bikes again and not actually commit to buying one. I like the *theory* of bicycling, but would I actually use one?

[davidwilford]

I've been riding around New Richmond on my bicycle for just over a week or so and enjoying it a lot. I don't mind heat so much and on a bike I can choose to coast and cool off when I like, with the exception of a few modest hills. I admit that today when I went out I did stay on the shady side of the street though.

[minnehaha]

I was reading about the high ozone index and bad air today, plus the sauna-like weather.... and determined it wasn't a bike day. Mighta been if I got up at 7:30 AM. Har de har.

K.

[dreamshark]

It's probably a bad idea to read about the weather before opening the door. I do that, of course, but I shouldn't. I end up just afraid to go outside for days at a time.

Which is just what the national weather conspiracy wants, of course. They want people hiding in their homes watching screens all day, which is why they keep inventing new and unnecessary concepts like Heat Index.