Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Springing into more winter

Woke up to a dazzling January morning today. A roaring wind raked the treetops beneath an ice blue sky. The temperature was about 10 degrees F.

It's barely cracked 20 now.

With good cover on the trails and daylight opportunities to use them, I've been charging out on the skating skis to take advantage of fast, granular snow. Cross -country skiing is one-stop shopping for a full body workout. I'm a big fan of convenience. And it's one of the few compensations for my bad life choices. Hopefully, regular exercise will help me take care of myself in my impoverished old age and leave me with enough energy to crawl off into the wilderness when the time comes.

Humans are the only life form that "retires."

Today felt good. I do want to get back to bike commuting, but as long as conditions favor skiing and seriously crimp my commuting route I'll just keep flailing on the trails. When I get on the bike my triceps are going to feel like a couple of country hams. It's pretty funny.

I just can't see wasting conditions like this on indoor training equipment or a winter-adapted bike.

The first day of spring is always a joke around here. The forecast for Friday does show us warming up to 33, but then we drop into the twenties again. Winter ends when it feels like it. In a week or two, heroic outdoor rides will look more tempting.

1 comment:

greatpumpkin said...

Around here in the DC area it can't make up its mind what season it is. We went from heavy snow with all activities cancelled, to springlike warmth in a few days, and tonight we get more snow, but Saturday it'll be 60. This continues for another month or two. The weather is like the politics.