Week Sixteen: Day Three: Back in the Saddle!

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 35 min.
TIME BACK: 37 min.
WEATHER: a few clouds, -16C, 6km/hr wind there; clear, -13C, 4km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: wool ski socks, boots, fleece pants, thermal underwear, turtleneck, fleece mid-layer, waterproof shell, lobster gloves, balaclava
NOTES:
My GOD, it felt good to get back on the bike today! The weather has been so cold that I've been putting it off since last week, and this morning I woke up with a million excuses not to bike. I felt a cold coming on, I didn't want to do it, the streets were too icy, it's just too hard, it takes too long . . . I nearly talked myself out of biking today, to be honest. What helped was having my bike-commuting outfit laid out for me when I woke up. It's hard to look at that and know that last night I was that determined to ride today, then still bail out.

And, really, I'm so glad I did bike today! As much as some people in my life make a big stink about it, and as much as it sometimes makes me feel like my own personal hero, bike-commuting is really not that big a deal. It doesn't take much longer, it's no less pleasant than dealing with traffic and parking, I didn't feel remotely cold this morning (to the contrary, I was a sweaty mess by the time I got to work) while I feel quite chilled when I drive, and I feel so much better - better mood, more energy, a healthier appetite - when I bike. What's not to love?

The anticipation of a dreaded event is almost always so much worse than the actual thing itself. I'm learning that the hard way with biking. Almost every morning when I first wake up, I don't want to bike. In those moments, I convince myself I hate biking. I just want to be lazy and wear my fashionable coat and breeze into work with a coffee in hand and my hair perfectly coiffed (read: brushed - that's about as fancy as my hair care gets). And yet, the moment I'm on the bike, I'm so grateful that I didn't give in to that lazy, path-of-least-resistance instinct that tries to talk me into driving every morning. The more frequently I bike, the easier it is to ignore that lazy part of me, and after a while that part hardly voices its opinion at all. So it seems everything is made worse the less I bike - the more days between bike-commutes, the harder it is to get back on the bike. So many things in life are like that, though, aren't they?

By the way, last night I started feeling a cold coming on: my throat was getting sore and phlegmy, I started coughing, my nose started getting blocked up, and I even started feeling the beginnings of body chills. I was convinced that without some serious intervention, I'd wake up with a full-blown cold. And yet, at the end of the day today, I'm feeling 100% myself! So, please allow me to share with you my infinite, priceless wisdom that seemed to make so much of a difference for me in the past twenty-four hours:

Ma Johnson's Olde Fashioned Cold Remedy

1. If your throat is sore, make yourself a green tea. Drink most of it, and use the rest to gargle with.
2. Take a few echinacea supplements before bed.
3. Go to bed early.
4. When you wake up, use a saline nasal rinse to clear out your sinuses.
5. Have another green tea: drink most of it, and gargle the rest.
6. Bike to work!

Et voila! You're cured! And if you're not cured, repeat this remedy and your fledgling cold is sure to clear up sooner than later. You've got Ma Johnson's Guarantee(tm) on it!