After three days of indoor workouts, I finally escaped the confines of the Cul-de-sac Shack’s underground bunker to pedal out of doors. However, given that at ride time it was about 27˚ with 10-15 MPH winds blowing out of the north-west, it took a LOT of self loathing, guilt, and promises of meaty lunchtime rewards to get me into the multiple layers of cold weather gear and out on the road.
Part of that self loathing and guilt was remembering the words that my doctor spoked to me back on February 13th: “Goddamn it Jason, you got fat. You’re starting to look like a butch inmate from Orange is The New Black crossed with a muffin topped Morrissey, and that’s not a good look for you. Hell, that’s not a good look for any man.”
[He may or may not have actually said that, but I know what I felt in my heart].
Anyway, Thursday is my self-imposed weigh in day since getting back to eating right and working out, and I wasn’t going to even attempt to stand on the scale if I didn’t get some sort of quality physical activity in beforehand.
Out I went into the cold wind, and pretty much immediately regretted it, especially when I hit a part of Baseline Road that had snow and ice covering the shoulder, a car coming up behind me, and a truck coming towards me. “There’s gotta be a better way!” I thought out loud.
…Muffin topped Morrissey…. butch inmates…
…Muffin topped Morrissey…. butch inmates…
OK, OK! I’ll keep going!! Get out of my head Doc!!
I got used to the cold soon enough, and the roar of the wind through my helmet was cathartic in its own way; I just pretended that the roar was coming from a high-speed descent into eternal damnation in a flat, frozen hell. That took my mind off of it for a bit.
As I rode along Vernon Road I stopped to grab a photo of the vehicle that once belonged to local music legend Ricky “Rockin’ Coxen” Coxenburg. From what I’ve heard Ricky and his mullet dropped out of high school in 1982 with plans of making it rich with a Van Halen cover band. Sadly Van Coxen never really learned the songs properly, or scored a paying gig, and the band were resigned to playing occasional underaged drinking parties in pole barns across the greater Beal City area.
Van Coxen were bad, and beyond a Van Halen cover band. They were essentially a cover band of a cover band. However despite being unattractive, untalented, and uneducated, Ricky was quickly gaining a reputation amongst 11th grade girls eager to be with Beal City’s answer to Diamond Dave. He was living the life… Rockin’ out, gettin’ laid, and somehow always able to come through with a case of Busch when no one else could.
But it was soon over. Rockin’ Coxen’s band mates graduated, got jobs, or went off to college. That fall Ricky got a job delivering furniture, bought a used Camaro, found out he got a 16-year-old pregnant, and soon got married. By Christmas they were divorced. Now 35 years later, Ricky is out of work, and the Camaro that was once his pride and joy sits alone in a snowy field along Vernon Road. No one sees much of Ricky lately, but every so often you can find him in the Blue Bar sipping on a beer, thinking about the good times: burning rubber in the Camaro, running a hair pick through his freshly home-permed mullet, and wearing out his cassette copy of Diver Down.
OK, I totally made that up, but the fictional tale of Ricky “Rockin’ Coxen” Coxenburg sure did help to take my mind of the cold wind slapping me in the face as I rode.
26.5 miles later I was home and ready to reward myself for getting out to ride, and for a successful weigh in, having lost another 2 pound, and bringing the total to 9.4 since February 13th. Only 40.6 pounds to go!
The reward was an amazeballs Buffalo turkey burger, on a whole wheat bun, topped with fat free cheese and low fat blue cheese slaw.
Hoping that the weekend will allow for some sort of outdoor exercise, but if not I’ll just hunker down in the workout room of the Cul-de-sac Shack as I ride nowhere and listen to something, anything, not Van Halen.
Later.