giving myself permission to leave the studly days behind

I've been forcing myself to ride, even a little bit, almost every dy during my winter break from teaching. Tere are. lots of reasons for this, and only a few of them have anything to do with bocycles. The upshot is that, for the past several days I have been more reluctant to go outside, but went anyway. Stupid, stupid.

Saturday night I came home from a trailer run for birdsed and sundries, and felt admittedly bad -- tired, with a scratchy throat. I woke up this morning (Sunday) with full-blown FLU: chills, fever, achy muscles, coughing, the works. I stayed home from teaching and spent the day tossing and turning while my fever spiked, went down and spiked again. now, near the end of the dy, my sleep cycle is completely off, I veer between fever and clamminess, and feel like crap. When I can, I try to eat some chicken soup or dink hot tea. Otherwise, I'm in bed ffeeling awful and waiting for this thing to pass. I hope it will pass soon, because I have a pretty important gig Friday evening and need to be able to sing for it.

Why did I stubbornly insist on riding as far into the winter as I did this year? A young friend who I got into bicycle commuting had given up a couple of weeks ago during the cold snap and had resorted to taking the bus everywhere again. Well, his parents help him with bus tickets and such. I have no such help at my age and TriMet bus tickets have, at $2.50 per fare, become the rip-pff of the century. So I have grumbled, pulled out my bicycle, and stubbornly pedaled away from the house each day, even on dys I haven't felt like it. I didn't listen to my body, and this is where it got me.

It is time to reevaluate my relationship with cold-weather bicycling. being a stud was fun when I had a reason to be -- when I raced. But it's highly unlikely that Ill be racing anymore, especially in cold weather; so there's really no point in forcing myself to ride on the worst days if my body suggests otherwise. So I'll be listening to my body more, and if my winter mileage falls as a result, then that's a small price to pay for maintaining my health. I'm not 25 anymore.