Kavanagh-O'Connell
Occasionally up to date

A Nice Fall

The weather is cooler, it's dark too early and the leaves are starting to change. We're into the school year and the kids have developed their homework/playtime rhythm -- at least until next week, when field hockey ends and Katie will have free time to fill.

We saw Andy and Lynn in Baltimore last week for our now annual birthday get-together/music fest at the Living Classrooms Maritime Magic fundraiser at the harbor. This year we saw The Subdudes, and the weather was again great and the food was excellent.

Tomorrow is the end of my "exercise year" which runs from October 11 to October 10. I track my workouts (maybe a bit obsessively) so I know I managed to increase my biking mileage 30 percent over last year, pedaling almost 4400 miles, on moving bikes and the ones in the gym that don't move. I got in almost 1000 miles on my new bike, which I bought in August. I'm pretty happy about seeing my distance and speed improve. And the 2.1 is a fun-to-ride bike.

Despite a ride that featured getting stung by a bee AND getting hit by a car, I haven't had any serious mishaps. I have, however, learned two important lessons about the sacrifices needed to increased my riding.

Being on the bike for 3 or 4 hours can be irritating. Shirt fabric flapping in the breeze is fine for the first 20 minutes, but after an hour, it hurts. A little fold in the cloth of my shorts turns into a very sore bum. Pedaling 90 times a minute means a lot of opportunity for repetitive friction. I'm not the first to realize this, which is why cyclists wear shorts with a built in pad (Depends!) -- close fitting clothes that wick sweat away and don't flap around -- yup, Lycra. So the first thing that suffered was my modesty.

On longer rides the straps on my pedals irritated my feet, so I put clipless pedals on the new bike -- they require shoes with a cleat on the bottom that attaches the shoes to the pedal. They work great for pedaling the bike. When slowing and stopping, it means unclicking a shoe from the pedal in order to put a foot down. It takes practice, but after a few hours, I could do it easily. And after nearly 1000 miles, I did it without thinking.

Until last Sunday, anyway. Approaching a street crossing, I pondered which foot to unclick, for some reason, and screwed up. Going about 1 MPH, I fell over like Arte Johnson on his tricycle. On the ground, feet tangled in the bike and very embarrassed, I realized that the second thing to go was my dignity. I was more embarrassed to fall over than I was to find myself sprawled across the hood of that car a month earlier.

I think there were only 2 witnesses. From that point on, I had a really strong ride. This weekend starts another exercise year.