9th ride

After having ridden outside last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I was pleased about the nice little 4-day streak I had going. However, when it needed to come to a halt yesterday because of Easter and my wife Michelle's birthday, that seemed to me to be good reason for it.

Today I looked forward to getting a new streak started. However, it was also opening day for the Detroit Tigers - my great passion. Their first game was in frosty Minnesota, at 3 p.m. Minnesota time - 4 p.m. for us here in the east. This enabled me to finish a pretty complete work day and get home just in time for the beginning of the game, which Detroit won 4-2, playing a pretty good game overall. So, with my heart singing, I went out afterward to ride.

However, due to the length of the game and the rapidly waning daylight, I felt it wouldn't be safe to ride out on the street with no light and no reflective gear. So, I rode laps inside the circle of our condo complex - affording me a good paved surface, minimal (indeed almost no) traffic, and continuous proximity to home should I have any trouble. I had measured it out at 0.4648 miles, and did 10 laps in 28 minutes, for a total of just over 4.6 miles. This strikes me as a pretty paltry effort, particularly in light of the fact that I had hoped to do 20 laps. But I had stupidly gone out without gloves, and with the temperature having dropped to 30 degrees, after the first couple of laps I could barely grip the handlebars - the fire that the game had built in me very quickly cooled off. So, I contented myself (as I often did while running) that at least a small effort was better than none at all.