Week 41 - Day One: All the Different Muscles

BIKE: Eastwood
TIME THERE: 23 min.
TIME BACK: 27 min.
WEATHER: a few clouds, 14C, no wind there; partly cloudy, 13C, 15 km/hr headwinds home.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt
NOTES:

I spent the weekend in Calgary visiting my baby-daddy. This meant leaving early from work on Friday afternoon, going straight to Sophia's daycare to pick up my daughter, and hitting the highway before the major traffic started building up. Sophia was such a trooper - I was so proud of her for travelling as well as she did on that three-hour road trip. Nevertheless, the trip didn't bode well for my efforts to get fitter. I didn't bike-commute to work on Friday, I sat on my ass for most of the weekend either driving to or from Calgary or hanging out at baby-daddy's house by myself while he went out to spend quality time with our daughter. Also, between the constraints of traveling and our sheer laziness, we ended up eating mostly fast food all damn weekend. And chocolates. An entire box of chocolates.

When stupid, horrible habit woke me up at 6:30 am on Saturday (even after going to bed after midnight), I realized that this early wakening was a gift in disguise. Sophia was still sleeping and her dad was in charge of her care for the weekend, so I could do whatever I wanted with myself. I was overcome with delight: would this mean that I would get to go on a walk? By myself??? First thing in the morning????

I quietly got dressed and headed out the door, reveling in this rare freedom. I never go for walks without pushing a stroller, which inevitably turns into my daughter demanding to walk herself, which inevitably turns into the sloooooowest walk in the history of the world punctuated by short bursts of chasing her down as she giddily bolts for the busiest road in sight. It's really not that pleasant, and unless I'm walking to the grocery store or the park I quite rarely go for walks anymore. And that's a damn shame, because walking is my all-time favourite mode of transportation and way to pass time.

During my 45-minute outing on Saturday, I started off walking, then I picked up into a jog for about 10-15 minutes until my knee started getting sore. Then I continued walking, but punctuated the walk with short 1- to 1.5-block sprints, which was somehow easier on my knees (and a hell of a lot of fun!!!). By the time I got back to baby-daddy's house, I felt free and refreshed and delighted to come home to my daughter's happy little face.

The problems started the next day. I woke up feeling kind of sore in muscles that I don't really use for biking but that I must have used quite a bit on my walk-jog-sprint. The muscles around my hips and ribs, my calves, even for some reason my abs, all of these were sore. By the time I got back to Edmonton on Sunday afternoon, my muscles had clenched up even more - who knew that sitting in a car for three hours straight wouldn't help the problem??

It made me realize that I should probably expand my exercise horizons. Sure, the biking is wonderful during the week, but there is so much more I can be doing that works all sorts of other muscle groups and gets my heart pounding. And what about strength training? I'm not doing any of that! Maybe on the weekends when I have the time I can take my daughter into the river valley and go on nice walks with her. Maybe in the evenings I can be doing abdominal exercises and push-ups and all sorts of splendid things.

Of course, not starting tonight. Dear Lord, no, not tonight! But maybe . . . tomorrow . . .