Monday, June 22, 2009

Travel diet

Last summer, I set myself on a travel diet - I am only allowed to travel more than some set distance (which tends to change based on what I feel like doing, but lets call it 30 miles) from home every other weekend. I stuck to it pretty well, and by the end of the summer I was rested and richer than I would have been otherwise. You ever add up how much you spend every single weekend when you go racing or doing cool training adventures? Of course, racing gives life a purpose, therefore its worth it. But I like the theory of the travel diet, so it went into effect this summer, too.

My point, of course, is that I wanted to go racing this weekend, but I can't run (local options abound for running), and the only two bike races were either Housatonic Hills, a 2.5hr drive each way, or some mountain bike race in NY, a 3hr drive each way. So, I didn't race. And it was raining and I was too wimpy to go outside in the rain, so basically I spent all day Sunday wondering what people do when they're not racing or training. I eventually settled on cleaning the apartment and making bread. I experimented with Manni's no-knead bread he's been making from the NYT recipe, and it was as easy and delicious as promised. Took all day, but hey, thats what I was going for.

Of course Saturday, I put in five hours on bikes and rollerskis. It turns out that skating makes your legs tired, so when you try to ride a bike after skating, you don't go very fast. It also turns out that if you ride on bald tires that have cracks in them, little round stones can give you flats. If, perchance, you don't bring anything to change said flats, you have to buy a tube off a passing cyclist, and you just might leave your wallet lying in the grass by the Harvard general store. Luckily people are honest and said wallet ended up at the Police station. Not that any of this could possibly apply to me.

5 comments:

Cathy said...

I spent yesterday cleaning as well. On hands and knees scrubbing the hardwood floors. I think I would have rather been racing...

Oh - and you should know better than to ride all the way out to Harvard without a spare!

Alex said...

I was about 10 minutes into the ride when I realized all I had with me was a cell phone and a wallet. But 10 minutes, man, no way was I going to turn around!

yeah.

Big Bikes said...

You had to BUY a tube of a passing cyclist? What kind of jerk charges a stranded cyclist for a spare tube? Either you don't have one to spare or you give it away.

Demographically speaking, cyclists are quite affluent (of course I'm not speaking for myself, or you, or most of the people we know) a tube is nothing, it's like buying someone a Venti Latte.

Grr

Jamie said...

I'd have given you a tube, but that means it would have been 10 years old and probably no good anyway. Hey, you could have done the Nashua River Canoe race this weekend. Close to home and getting wet didn't matter much since you always get wet in those things anyway. Hope the knee is healing.

Alex said...

Thom, in the other cyclist's defense, I did offer to buy the tube from him, and he did only ask for $3 when I asked how much he wanted...

Jamie, I went for a run yesterday! It was momentous. No pain!