Return of the...

Well, I finally did it. I actually did what my blog title says and I became the Big Guy ON a Bicycle again, instead of just the Big Guy WITH a (several, actually) bicycle(s).

My parents came through town on Friday evening. They got in at about 5:00 or so, and we all went to dinner and then just had a nice visit back at the house. They left for their condo time-share week in western NC fairly early on Saturday morning.

My sister came in on Saturday evening. She’d really come to town earlier in the day, but was attending a wedding and only came over after the festivities were over. She stayed the night because she didn’t feel like driving back to Georgia that evening.

So, between the time that my parents left and my sister showed up, we had most of Saturday to do whatever we needed to do. This included minor errands such as grocery shopping and the like, but it also included my escorting Mrs. Guy to see her new personal trainer. It was her fourth visit, and she’s thinking I might want to start using him too.

But that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I don’t think I’m ready to do a lot of the exercises that even MG was doing. I had tried to go jogging one night last week, but I barely got 20 paces in before I decided that the noise/feeling coming from my shoulder, while not necessarily painful, was not a good thing and that maybe I’d better lay off of it for another few weeks. Where does that leave me? Well, I get in a lot of walking at work, but that’s just not doing it. The Big Guy is just getting bigger.

But then, on Saturday afternoon, came the perfect moment to reintegrate the bicycle into my life. The weather was good (just a little breezy) and the sun was shining. MG was even encouraging me to get out there (which is rare – she usually complains that I spend too much time riding).

I left the house at around 4:00pm planning to ride for about 15 to 17 miles. That was before I realized that my cyclometer wasn’t working. Come to think of it, it wasn’t working well on the last day of the Blue Ridge Parkway trip back in August, which I guess was the last time I rode. So instead of paying attention to how much distance I was accumulating, I just rode.

It was a good ride. I just went on a looping course not too far from my house. My legs were OK, and the lungs were fine. Only my butt complained a little, but it has been a couple of months since I rode last. My only difficulty came on Rather Road with a dog I’ve had experience with before. I thought I’d be fine passing him since he had just started to…do his business…right as I was approaching. Every other time I’ve seen a dog in the process of … doing their business … they have remained committed to the act and not given chase. I suppose there’s an exception to every rule. This dog just jumped right after me as soon as it noticed me. I was going to try the ‘Gatorade-up-the-nose’ trick, but he seems to have remembered that one from before. I ended up slowing down a bunch and letting him run back and forth behind me (while I kept the bottle aimed) and then punching into a sprint that he couldn’t react to. Dumb dog.

I figured out later that I rode about 15 miles (using Gmap-pedometer). Not bad, but very much shorter than my typical ride. Maybe I can get back out on Sunday. Saturday is out, since I’ll be doing photography at the annual local 12 hour race during daylight hours, and then will take over scorekeeping after dark. Maybe I’ll plan on a 20 miler on Sunday.

Right after I replace my cyclometer.