Why not?

First off, let me just take a minute to complain about the pollen.  I love the plants, and the bees, well, their honey specifically, and I suppose pollen is a necessary intermediary, but seriously now, you’ve made your point, pollen, you are necessary, now give us a break!    Apparently Oregon has been been in the news lately with record breaking pollen counts, leading everywhere else in the county.  I suppose that should give me some solidarity of not being alone in my suffering.  Ugh, so I went from snot factory to cold, straight back to snot factory.  Well, along with snot factory, my head gets the distinguished status of foggy noggin, when not threatening to explode under pressure.  So far, my lifelines include;  a neti pot, zyrtec-d, mucinex, and a plethora of tissue paper. I can make do with a combination of these things, but remove more than one from my daily equation, and it’s not good.

Getting in my rides and exercise has been a little struggle under these inhumane conditions.  The first couple miles of each ride are pretty brutal, then eventually things open up a little when my sinus passages realize my legs and will are disregarding the complaints.  Getting over the cold, I started back with a good amount of riding last week, nothing to crazy, just repeating the easy stretch out to Boring and back, throwing in some side-hill action along the way a couple times to mix it up.  With each ride, I was feeling faster, but earlier this year, I apparently threw down some quick pedals.  Regardless of how fast I was feeling last week, I just wasn’t getting any new speed/time achievements on the board.

I know that I’m still improving, and I’ll get back to the regular PR’s on that stretch, but for now, I think I may have hit the wall.  So what do you do when that happens?  Mix it up!  Well, okay, get in some more hill climbing too.  For my first ride of this week, I decided to head the other direction for a little change.  Usually I prefer the ride to Boring on account of less people on the trail, but I really need to branch out and work in the waterfront ride on a more regular basis.  I certainly was not feeling fast, my head was extra clogged, and my feet were once again telling me they hate the sandals and want to be back in the Sidi’s.  The entire ride my mind was also thinking overtime about the energy depriving part of ataxia, and trying to use that as an excuse to how I was feeling, lethargic.  On the way back, things started syncing up again and looking at the time, I decided I could afford a quality sweat up Mt. Scott and past the cemetery before settling back into work.  Look, a big hill climb.  Why not?

Still, nothing felt fast today, but I was happy to see the encouraging achievements of progress on my ride summary when I got home.  Every time I can ride should feel like a success, regardless, still, I find the trophies and achievements on segments a good way to keep me reaching past comfort and into tangible progress.  The healing is going well with the feet and I’m hopeful about moving back to my favored road shoes and pedals by this time next month.  Every little bit helps and my legs are hungry for more!