Rides & Recommendations

I was up late on Saturday (11 PM is late for me) as Wifey and I watched a Tom Talk (not to be confused with Ted Talks or Turd Talks) and waited for B to get home from a day trip to MSU with E-Dawg (his lady love) and some friends. I only mention this to set up the fact that I wanted to ride on Sunday morning, and each minute, my ass stayed up past nine o’clock; I became more and more resound to the idea of sleeping until noon. Snore.

SHOCK PLOT TWIST  (THAT ISN’T THAT SHOCKING)

Fast forward 7 hours, and I was up at 6:15 to yell at Jake (the dog), see if he needed out, and put the coffee on. I felt oddly refreshed, so I just stayed up.

There were all the normal morning activities: coffee, Soiled Egg (White) Sammich, more coffee, and a bowel evacuation or three. Now, I was ready for a ride.

Right now, I am just trying to find some happiness on the bike again, so of late, I leave the house with some longtime routes in mind, don’t pay attention to any of them, do a little lollipop figure-8 type thing, and head home. And the summer thus far has had me returning home ready to hang it up for good. 

Then today happened.

I’ve essentially been off the bike for over a year for a multitude of personal issues that, seemingly, aren’t so personal, given that I’ve talked “warts and all” about my life for way too long here as if people give a fuck about what a random fat 49-year-old middle-class white man does with his life. I digress.

I rode my bike, and it didn’t suck! I’m not sure if it was the cooler temps, the ever so slight breeze, or the byproduct of some shred of fitness via my renewed commitment to being fat but fit1. All I know is that for the first time in nearly a year, I felt good on a bike and remembered why I dig riding bikes so much. At 20 miles, it wasn’t a long ride, but at this point in my life, it doesn’t have to be; it just has to be a ride. 

BIKES!!!!!

One final note:

I mentioned watching a Tom Talk earlier; I HIGHLY recommend the episode with Ethan Suplee. As someone who has experienced the highs and lows of extreme weight loss and gains, I can relate all too well to the mind fuck of being overweight and the struggle to find mental and physical peace.

I think this episode should be required viewing for anyone looking for some motivation to get in shape, as well as those who are so quick to judge what an overweight person is going through. So many people think that an obese person is just “lazy” or a “hog” (using phrases my dad used to use on me when I was a kid) when so often it’s the result of other traumas and the eating is response. I could go on, but I won’t.

Time to plan today’s workout as well as wish Wifey a Happy 24th Anniversary! How did we celebrate? We bought each other new chairs for the deck. I’m pretty 24 years is the “plastic resin anniversary.”

Later.


  1. This commitment, which started July 2nd for some reason, has me doing something, anything, to keep moving forward each day (metaphorically speaking, sometimes I’m on the Dreadmill going nowhere physically, but somewhere mentally and still burning calories). So far this month, I have hiked, lumbered, walked, ran, and biked over seventy miles and burned nearly 6,700 calories. Not bad for someone who has the words “morbidly” and “obese” written in his medical chart, will be 50 in a couple of days, and has the mental capacity of a 4-year-old.

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