I rode my bicycle to work every day this week, but the third day was the hardest. Possibly the accumulation of fatigue and muscle wear collided with mental ineptitude causing and effect I termed the third day crash.
The third day ride to work was longer than the first two. My legs were sore and my knees felt as if the were going to explode and geyser blood skyward. The hills seemed to grow to alpine altitudes as I stood on the peddles trying to crank my way up zig-zaging against the incline. I fumbled through gears which never seemed to get correct. The worst was my mind seemed to be fuzzy and the choices that came out of my decision making was idiotic, comical and dangerous.
On my job I stand at a cash register all day. On one hand I think it gave me some endurance and conditioning to add bicycling to my routine; on the other hand it was torturous to stand on fatigued legs that felt as if they were slowly being liquidized in a blender full of nails. My shoulders and arms ached in sympathy to my abused legs.
The ride home felt like it took two weeks. Every turn of the crank caused me to gasp for breath partly for need of oxygen and partly because of the two alarm fires in my legs. For some reason the landscape seemed to evolve more hills going home. I had to stop at every intersection and struggle back up to a snails crawl. I tried some shortcuts across a parking lot and a grassy meridian; they were bad choices since I had to lift my bike over curbs, (where is a forklift when you need one), and the grass was softer than quicksand from which I barely escaped to the other side.
Fortunately I had Thursday off which I spent semi comatose as a walking zombie going through the motions of housework and errands. All day I fought the feeling that I was about to fall asleep any moment. For some reason planetary gravity had increased five-fold, because it took herculean effort to lift the coffee cup to my quivering lips. I gave in and like some centuries old geezer and fell asleep in the rocking chair with a heating pad on my thighs. (Heating pads are wonderful things and much better than stuffing furry cats between aching muscles and your clothing).
During my day of rest I debated privately in my mind if I was going to continue to ride my bike every day to work. One errand caused me to drive my 1987 not so trusty Chrysler Reliant K to a spot down the freeway. It needed gas coming back and as I was about to sign a second mortgage to pay for it, the thought came to me that what I spent for that tank of gas took me a day to earn at my job, and felt rage at the legal pick pocketing I was experiencing. The gas was in the tank so I couldn't give it back. The only alternative to riding a bike every day is to learn how to distill some kind of of white lighting to feed the tank of the tired old Chrysler, but my wife is always fussing about how I put paper shreds in the blender to make my own note paper, I could imagine she would have a herd of cows if I started to distill ethanol in the basement. (Could it really be that hard?). So I will ride my bike every day to work.
The third day ride to work was longer than the first two. My legs were sore and my knees felt as if the were going to explode and geyser blood skyward. The hills seemed to grow to alpine altitudes as I stood on the peddles trying to crank my way up zig-zaging against the incline. I fumbled through gears which never seemed to get correct. The worst was my mind seemed to be fuzzy and the choices that came out of my decision making was idiotic, comical and dangerous.
On my job I stand at a cash register all day. On one hand I think it gave me some endurance and conditioning to add bicycling to my routine; on the other hand it was torturous to stand on fatigued legs that felt as if they were slowly being liquidized in a blender full of nails. My shoulders and arms ached in sympathy to my abused legs.
The ride home felt like it took two weeks. Every turn of the crank caused me to gasp for breath partly for need of oxygen and partly because of the two alarm fires in my legs. For some reason the landscape seemed to evolve more hills going home. I had to stop at every intersection and struggle back up to a snails crawl. I tried some shortcuts across a parking lot and a grassy meridian; they were bad choices since I had to lift my bike over curbs, (where is a forklift when you need one), and the grass was softer than quicksand from which I barely escaped to the other side.
Fortunately I had Thursday off which I spent semi comatose as a walking zombie going through the motions of housework and errands. All day I fought the feeling that I was about to fall asleep any moment. For some reason planetary gravity had increased five-fold, because it took herculean effort to lift the coffee cup to my quivering lips. I gave in and like some centuries old geezer and fell asleep in the rocking chair with a heating pad on my thighs. (Heating pads are wonderful things and much better than stuffing furry cats between aching muscles and your clothing).
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| I refuse to pay that much for gas. |
