I amaze myself sometimes
So today I’m cycling along University Ave on the way to the library and I’m thinking, Dang, this is getting easy. I look down at the cyclometer and it’s reading about 24 mph at about 90 rpm cadence. Woo hoo! I have legs! Spin, spin spin!
Later it hits me: It wasn’t me, it was the 15-20 mph tailwind. Doh!
Later still, bucking that same wind on the way home, 9-12 mph and barely able to maintain 65-70 rpm cadence.
I get to work early, more out of habit than anything else. I could have walked and still been a half-hour early. So I settled into a chair in the periodicals room and stuck my nose into the July issue of Bicycling magazine.
Completely absorbed in a article about recumbents, next thing I know, it’s two minutes past my start time. Yikes! I jumped out of the chair, put the mag on the rack and scurried off in the direction of the circulation desk.
Halfway there, I got dizzy—the nearly blacking-out kind of dizzy—and almost fell into the reference desk. Whoa!
What came to mind was my new resting heart rate, 46 bpm at last measurement. Aha, I thought. I need to give the old ticker some time to speed up. And I went about the business of shelving.
Later, after shelving something on the bottom shelf then standing up quickly, the dizziness made a reprise. And that’s when it occurred to me.
You dope. You’re a quart or two low. You didn’t drink anything when you got to work. I went to the back room, chugged a liter of water and sloshed my way back to the shelves. A half-hour later, no problems at all.
Gee, I guess the heart needs a certain volume or thinner viscosity in order to pump blood to my damned fool head.
What amazes me is that I know all this, and like everything else, I guess, I seem to forget it.
Remember to notice and appreciate the tailwind when you have it. Don’t attribute it to a couple of nights of good sleep. Remember to drink when you’re thirsty, especially after a ride.
