Fatigue is everywhere on our back

It was not severe, but every time when we sit on the chairs, our backs were silently tired.  I was afraid  that our bodies might get stiff if we don't move.

So we just rode for a half hour this morning.  This was very easy ride and not much slope included.  Accidentally I rode with fast pedaling a little, then my left thigh started stringy pain, so I immediately loosened.
Just before reached our house, both my forearms got numb-ish pain.  And now I felt pain in both heels when I walk.  It shows my body's fatigue.  OK.  I wonder if this short ride was the right thing to do or not??  I can't feel my back fatigue, but pains on my arms and heels.  I guess I'd better quit this training like go-on ride soon.  Because the result haven't shown any progress even shown regression a little bit I guess.  
Well, what's next?  How can I put good cycling in my life?

Time, distance, average Spd, and Max Spd.

Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility Ponds

Mr. WhP had a hard time to load our two bicycles which now got rear racks, but he managed.  Even though we both were still tired, because we can come back anytime so we decided to try a short bike trip today.

Parked at the entrance of Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility.

Yes, here is the nice entrance of the trail

The peach color sand (Mr. WhP told me that is crushed granite) was very nice to ride on.  I stopped and looked back to take a picture.

This is better place than we expected.  He looked happy.

OK, let's go!

The comfortable clean looking sand road was ended, then gravel road was continued.

I was a little nervous how long I would be able to manage riding on gravel.

But it was not bad at all.

"Haystacks were neatly piled up!"

This is great flat riding!!

We finished riding around the Ellis Creek ponds.

 Next we took the path to Shollenberger Park.

On the way to Shollenberger Park, there was deep sand on the trail, I lost my balance, so I just walked for some steps.  He kept on riding, figures.

Luckily we could find the bridge to Alman Marsh. That was a nice bridge, but we both were busy for riding.

Then, a never expected view got into our eyes.  It was a bumpy very narrow path sandwiched by tall grass growing along the sides, luckily we didn't see anybody coming from ahead of us until the next part.

Next surprise was the long and 2 people side by side wide boadwalk right next to the river.  If you are an active and adventurous person, you will be delighted, but I'm not.  It was hard for me, so when I saw a young girl running toward me, I was off from my bicycle to let her pass.  And that was good idea.

Finally we reached the ground safely.  Obviously we didn't want to go back the way we came.  So we took the busy and fast traffic main road, Lakevill Hwy 116 for a while and finally back to the wide street with a bike lane, McDowell Blvd S, and kept riding the business streets until the total distance was 10 miles.  This was Sunday, so the street was quite and fun to ride.

I forgot my bike computer today, so this is cyclometer record which is always very close to the bike computer.
Time: 1:20:08, distance: 10.5 miles, average spd: 7.9 mph, and max spd: 15.8 mph.

Twilight ride

I was going to get up early, but I did too early so I returned to bed this morning, and what?!!  We both slept until 11 am!!!!!  We can't believe it.  We must have exhausted.  The hot weather heated our house and the room temperature has been very weird.  During our sleeping at night suddenly the bedroom got hot.  This kind of incident really disturbs old folks sleeping.
So anyway we lost the chance to ride in cool air in the morning, and waited until late afternoon again.

Today we had a chance to use our "blinky lights".
Front one is blue:

Back is red:

Somehow the red one has much better visibility than the blue one on the road.

Time, distance, average speed, and max speed.


By the way, the more we rode on the main streets, the more we got scared to ride next.  And also watching somebody crashing into the door opening or some accident in movies gave us a small trauma too.  I wish I could find a decent enough place to ride as a bike trip.

Late afternoon ride

It was crying hot day today.  So we had to wait until the temperature went down.  While we were riding, the clouds in the sky were getting grayer and grayer.

We haven't been able to ride 10 miles for three days.  And we both were tired and weak at beginning.  But took long warm up, had some sprints, and relaxing cool down, and rode 11 miles!

Time, Distance, average speed, and max speed.

Morning ride

It was a very nice morning ride we had today.  Even though quite a few people were exercising mostly on sidewalk, just a few on the street, and they look happy and friendly.  So I was comfortable and pleasant to greet them. 

In addition I noticed that I haven forgotten to do sprints for a long time.  Maybe that's why we couldn't ride this month as much as last month.  My cadence got slow and so did my energy level.

So even though we didn't have even an hour to spend riding today, we did some sprints after warming up.  Felt so good.
And we made sure to cool down at the end of our ride to avoid muscle pain.

Now it got hot now in the afternoon.   I should get up early tomorrow morning.

Time, Distant, Average speed, and Max speed.

While we were biking, we saw a professional looking cyclist, and a car was following him as if his agent driving?  That was somehow fun for me!  Maybe rich kid and his father??? -no, no, I don't want to destroy my dream.

I wish the weather would get cooler soon.

The shortest and dissapointing ride

Never happened before.  We always liked riding in our neighborhood when it's hot, because the road is less crowed.
And it was hot today, but not 100F yet.

So we decided to go.  In addition I was a little excited to use new bike computer which is connected to the sensor by wire. 

And we put rear bike racks for the future necessity to carry each jacket and etc.

When I rode over 2 miles, I heard the noise from my bicycle.  Both tires were OK.  But I was so uncomfortable that I couldn't ignore.

That was chewing gum, which was melted like liquid and had spread out on my tire!

I rode more for a while, but finally I gave up.  It's so disgusting!!!  And I felt God must have told us something.  So gave up and went back home.

Just less than a half an hour ride, but when we got home, we felt dehydrated unusually.  "That was right that we came back." Mr. WhP said.
And he continued to clean the gunkies off from not only the tire but also back of the saddle and spokes!  

He used some alcohol and then, he used furniture polish "orange glo" which is made from orange oil, and that was the best.

I learned that we should avoid to ride on paved residential road when it's really hot.  In a way dirt road is nicer.

This short ride record:

Time, distance, Average Speed, and Max Speed.

We needed some comfort food, so..

I sliced in halves leftover Trader Joe's  "Brioche Buns" .

And put orange marmalade, strawberry jam, and cottage cheese in.

With iced milk coffee, we were comforted well.

Quick start no worry

Finally I got it.  Just start and stop, but it's not easy to get right.  I'm still not perfect sometimes, but I'm comfortable now.

10 miles ride; I'm getting used to it.  But 5 minutes before the end, I got toe cramps on my left, oh, gosh!  I forgot to cool down today.  We were on a tight schedule.  agrrr...

Distance, average speed, max speed and time.

We watched the movie " Quicksilver,"  a story about bike messengers like " 2 seconds."   The job is so dangerous, but not appreciated and paid unfairly low.  The dangerous-ness attracting people to watch made me very uncomfortable.  I felt a silent message like riding bicycle is only for unusual people.  I don't think so!

I'd like to watch movies of which bicycles got into the life of people.  Is there any?  Maybe Europeans might have made some, if it's so, I really would like to watch those movies.

Because of my age? I was not quite recovered.

I was not quite recovered from yesterday.  I didn't have enough energy today, when I started riding, I felt so.  Then my right calf almost started cramping.   I changed right hand gear smaller to ease pedaling.

Yesterday I lifted up my saddle to 3.5" from 2.5"  Now I have to tilt the bicycle to reach to the ground.  I couldn't stop smoothly yesterday, but I finally got a beautiful and safe stop.

Tomorrow I need to try beautiful start without sitting at the beginning.  I hope I will finish my training completely about stop and restart tomorrow.

Distance, Average speed, Max speed, and Time.

At least 10 more years I want to ride.

I was wondering how long we can ride our bicycles together.  And bicycle.com has this article. Age is just a number

This is very interesting.  Especially No.6  Many people don't sleep enough. And resting is very much as important as training.  So yesterday we took another resting day.

Well, after two days resting we thought we should take it easy at the start.  So we took a very slow warm up for long as we wished.

Distance, average speed, max speed, and time

Resting, resting, ....

Recently we both are getting tired deeply and can't get lid of it soon enough.  That must be because of aging.  We were not tired so much last night, but we got really exhausted this morning.  And it continued all day today.  At night we finally got better a little bit.


The movie we watched " 2 seconds" was very sad for me. 

The scene she was bashed by an idiot driver's car door opening, and she was pushed into air, made me traumatized.  I still can remember even now.  And the scene where she soaked her butt into a basin which was filled with iced water after long hours riding.
But her beautiful and lean legs and arms were really fascinating for me.  I wanted get that really short cut like her, and I was almost going to go the hair cut place, but I held myself.   First I need to reduce my weight.

"The Kid with a Bike" was pretty good.  

I was amazed to see the boy who twisted his handle and stood still by balancing.  Also he was carrying a bag of charcoal in one hand and the handle with the other hand to ride back home.  
I wish I could have that balance.

 
Sorting, cleaning, reading and shopping.  It was pretty resting day we had.
Hope we will get more energy tomorrow at least a little bit.

Shoulder pain??!

I woke up with stiff shoulder and pain in right shoulder.  Then Mr. WhP started whining and wondering why his shoulder got such a weird pain.  "Right here!"  he pushed my shoulder.  "Yeah, me too, right there!" I said.   We both must have gotten really tense yesterday for riding next to windy, fast motorists.  In addition he had to watch me and worried who was riding ahead of him.  (He said, pumping two tires all in row gave him that pain.  Yes, dear. You'd better buy a much more efficient and easier pump to replace!)

I have a point to say that I'm always uncomfortable to ride even in a wide bike lane if the speed limit is 45 or over next to me, because people drive 50 or even faster than 45 usually.
Maybe I should quit riding on main roads, we thought so.


Residential Rd bike:  We took a long warm-up at slow speed.

Distance, Average Speed, Max Speed, and Time

But I rode on Watmaugh Rd for a while today, even though speed limit is 40 mph they drove way faster!

Main road trip to Cotai with 2 punctures

We wanted to try riding on main roads in another city.  So I planned to park at Penngrove park & ride, and we were ready to bike.  But Old-Redwood-Hwy, which is in front of the parking lot, was quite busy with high speed cars and trucks, I got freaked out.  But once I got onto the bike lane I was fine, then we turned right onto Main St. which has no bike lane but is a bicycle friendly road.  The road was also busy and an up-slope so it was quite challenging for me.  Finally we got up to Petaluma-Hill-rd with bike lane.  That road speed limit is 45mph, but car and trucks were passing at a much faster speed, then I saw another slope was standing ahead.  I took some breaths and started again.

Just in case, I decided to change left-hand gear 1 just before the slope.

As you see, the drivers are courteous enough not to pass too close to my elbow, I was lucky.

When I turned left onto E Cotati Ave, I carefully moved into left turn lane with cars.  Beginning of E Cotati bike lane was not finished yet, but there is a nice side walk all the way to where the bike lane starts.  So it was quite comfortable, except for small gravel bits and tree seeds.
But suddenly a broken and poking out surface on the bike lane came up to me and I was really surprised.

They should paint it to warn us, I thought.
Then I noticed that I heard a strange noise from my bicycle, and found the front tire was flat.

Mr. WhP examined my tire for a while and finally found the tiny hole.

  

OK, we started enjoying the ride on E Cotati, and dropped by Oliver market to get sandwich. 

We crossed Old Redwood Hwy by walking and got onto Old Redwood Hwy.  Suddenly Mr. WhP said something.  Now his rear tire was punctured!

Other than that the ride on Old Redwood Hwy was quite fun and comfortable.  With bike lane the speed limit should be 35- 45 mph should be the best I thought.  Like this road. 

When we returned to the parking, we continued riding to cool off in the small parking lot.

Distance, average speed, max speed and time.
 

It's already hot in the morning!

The temperature was 82F at the front of our house and 90F at the back, so this was the chance now to ride today.  We just drank water and munched one bite of fig bar, and left.

Yesterday's trip was in a new place to ride mainly so that we couldn't ride freely because it was necessary to stop to check a map, and to be careful how cars were coming on the road.  Because of that we couldn't finish riding 10 miles.

So I thought that we should ride at least 10 miles today.  And we did.  10 to 15 min. before the end my knees were starting to hurt and legs were tired.  We drank a little salted water twice, and one bite of granola bar during this one hour riding.  We came back in heat 100F!

Showing Distance, Average Speed, Max Speed, and Time.


Last night we watched a movie, "Copenhagen".  That was quite nice.  Especially I liked their public rental bicycle system.  Just put a coin to rent the bicycle and bring it back to the rack in the city.

Another Main Roads and Trails

Suddenly got an idea to go and see our old residence townhouse and its neighborhood, so I planned the bike trip to include that.  It's been more than a decade so the view of the area must be different, we thought.

When we were living there 15 years ago, the park didn't exist, just an empty field.  Now the city built a nice park, we parked our car, and started riding on the main road which had a nice wide and never disappearing bike lane!  What a wonderful city Petaluma is!!  Because of easy riding we reached our old place smoothly.  We enjoyed those nicely grown trees in front of the town house.  We had no idea what kind of trees were there, everything was young and small back then.

We left with a happy and nostalgic feeling for the next trail.

Back to the city road with the bike lane.   Some parts were overhung by big tree branches so we had to hunch low. 
It was very easy access to the trail from Sonoma Mountain Pkway. The trail is running along the east side of Leghorn park, North to South.
I love the green surroundings.

We came from over the city road to here.
Mr. WhP is drinking water.

Then we turned right onto Maria Dr, crossed Sonoma Mountain Pkwy again, walked to cross Ely to another nice Trail by Fieldstone Ln. 

Looking back on the trail.

 Looking ahead on the trail.

After turning right on Riesling Rd, I was so happy to see the wide bike lane.  Thank you, city of Petaluma!

Turned right on Dove Dr. to get onto the trail we rode before, then came down to Sonoma Mountain Pkwy all the way to Leghorn Park.
We wanted to ride more, but my headache started slightly because of the extreme hot weather.  We came back.
Our back garden temperature was 104 F!!!  We had iced juice and cold cereal with cold milk to cool us off.

Today's record:
Time, Distance, Average speed, and Max speed.