I rode to work 4 days this week, every day after the rainy Monday. On Tuesday, I took the long way home (humming that old Supertramp song), and instead of my usual 24.5 commute round trip miles, I did 46.4 miles.
I had a really poor mileage month last month, and with a three day weekend trip to DC this month where I’ll get 0 miles, I’m going to have to work to get my miles in.
2011 days ridden to work: 73
2011 commuting mileage: 1766.1
Commute route
I rode to work all five days last week. Friday’s ride home against the 30+ mph winds was a bit tough.
Monday’s ride home from work was looking iffy when they issued a tornado warning for Glen Rose an hour before I got off. But the storm passed just south of Crowley as I was riding toward Crowley from the north. I never even felt a rain drop.
2011 days ridden to work: 69
2011 commuting mileage: 1668.1
Commute route
I rode to work all five days this week. There will be no bike commuting next week; I’m on vacation. The wind was gusting to 50 mph on my ride home yesterday, making it the windiest day I’ve ever bike commuted on. Thankfully, it was blowing from the west northwest, a quartering tailwind that let me keep the bike right side up, though there were interesting moments here and there.
That was the worst blowing dust I’ve seen in a long time. My lung leftovers really don’t like that kind of dust in the air, especially while I’m huffing and puffing on a bike.
And the wind changed my vacation plans. Instead of spending today on Lake Fork, casting to bedding bass, I’ll be spending the day rebuilding my fence the wind blew down.
2011 days ridden to work: 64
2011 commuting mileage: 1545.6
I rode to work all five days again last week. March became the first calendar month that I’ve ever ridden to work every single work day of the month.
2011 days ridden to work: 56
2011 commuting mileage: 1,349.6
The Lungevity Foundation posted my Guest Blog on their website today. Here is the text from it:
It’s mid March, 2011, as I sit down to write this. My 60th birthday is in three weeks. It’s a birthday celebration that didn’t seem too certain when I was diagnosed with lung cancer forty months ago. But I was in a small minority of lung cancer patients who are diagnosed early, and have remained cancer free since my surgery in December, 2007.
The biopsy from my surgery found one cancerous lymph node, so my diagnosis became stage 2. I completed three rounds of chemotherapy in April, 2008. I don’t yet know if I’m cured, but at least I’ve had thee plus years of good health since my diagnosis and surgery. Hopefully, early diagnosis will soon become a lot more common, and a majority of lung cancer patients will enjoy at least a few cancer free years after treatment, just like I have. For those lucky enough to experience that, I say this: don’t set limits on what you can do. Challenge yourself to see what you can achieve, and how good a quality of life you can have after cancer.
I was already a long distance cyclist before my diagnosis. I even did a 200k ride two weeks before my surgery. So, challenging myself to see what I could do was already something I was familiar with. Setting out to see if you can do a 200k (125 miles) or 300k (187 miles) randonneuring ride on a bicycle is pretty scary at first. The natural thought is that it’s just impossible for an ordinary person to ride that far on a bicycle. But, with good training, and building up to longer distances, it turns out that it’s not nearly as tough as you thought.
But like everyone who’s diagnosed with lung cancer and scheduled to have part of a lung removed, I wondered what it would be like afterward. Research had already told me that the body cannot regenerate lost lung tissue, and that chronic fatigue was a common symptom of too much lost lung function. My lung function was good enough that I wasn’t worried about chronic fatigue after surgery, but would I still have the stamina to do a 200k ride? Would I still be able to average over 120 miles a week on a bike, like I did in 2007? My mindset was that I would challenge myself and find out.
Before the end of May in 2008, six weeks after I finished chemotherapy, I did a 100 mile ride, and in early June, I did a 200k. So yes, long distance riding was still possible after lung cancer. In the time since those two rides, I’ve done 51 more rides of 100 miles or more.
In 2010, my riding focus changed from long distance riding to commuting to work on my bike. But even with the majority of my 2010 miles on a heavier commuting bike, and holding down a full time job all year, I still managed over 7,500 miles ridden for the year, an average of over 140 miles a week.
What do I hope to accomplish next on a bike? At my current pace, by the end of this coming June, I will have ridden 24,900 miles since my diagnosis. Does that number sound familiar? It’s the circumference of the earth. If I reach that milestone, I will have ridden around the world since my lung cancer diagnosis.
Can I do it? I think I can. But, things like that are only possible if you challenge yourself, rather than arbitrarily deciding what you CAN’T do.
In other words, don’t set limits!
Read the article here.
The city of Fort Worth actually has what looks to me like a good bike plan. They’re stated goal is to “Attain official designation as a Bicycle Friendly Community through the League of American Bicyclists” by 2015. But planned improvements for bikes were already moving at a snails pace even before the downturn and subsequent budget crunch hit. Now, you really don’t see much going on in this area. Maybe if these gas price increases last for a while, cities like Dallas and Fort Worth will have more incentive to make their bike projects a priority.
I rode to work 4 days last week. I took Friday off the bike, and zombied out over the weekend to see if some time off my feet would help with my shin splints.
I rode to work yesterday to end up with 420 miles total for February. That’s not very good mileage for me, but considering the bad weather at the first of the month and my shin splints at the end of the month, I guess it will have to do.
It was 32 degrees as I rode to work this morning, and 72 degrees as I rode home this afternoon, a 40 degree temperature swing. How do you dress for that?
2011 days ridden to work: 33
2011 commuting mileage: 794.8
Commute route
I rode the LSR 100k populaire today. I missed a turn and got some bonus miles in the ride, plus I rode the 17.5 miles from my house to the start and then back after the ride. I ended up with 107.3 miles, my first century on the Xstream.
I rode to work three days this week. It was 18 degrees as I rode to work this morning. I am certainly looking forward to next week’s warmer weather.
Today’s ride home ended up being more treacherous than I expected. I dismounted and walked my bike across a large stretch of ice in the shade of an underpass, but then went down just two miles further down the road when I hit a small patch of wet leaves in a turn. No obvious damage to bike or rider, although I’m thinking a bruise may show up on my right hip.
2011 days ridden to work: 22
2011 commuting mileage: 530.2
Commute route
I rode with Rose, Greg, and Alexis yesterday, and rode to work today. It was low 40’s for the ride to work and mid 50’s for the ride home, and cloudy all day. I passed a salmon going the other way on Crowley Road just as I got into Crowley. That always seems to be the only other riders I see on my commute.
It looks like a couple of days off the bike for weather, now.
2011 days ridden to work: 19
2011 commuting mileage: 457.9