#sam bikes

[copperbadge]

Whenever I go out on my bike (and if I go running outside), I use an app which sends my mother a text to let her know I’m traveling and a link so she can watch it track me in realtime if she wants; when the ride ends I push a button on the app and it sends another text to let her know I’ve arrived. This makes her feel much calmer about me riding in an urban environment and also means that if something happens to me, she knows and can call for help, so I feel safer, too.

What cracks me up is that clearly GPS tracking isn’t fantastic -- it shows me on the sidewalk or in the middle of a block frequently -- but it DID manage to catch that little squiggle at the intersection where an asshole on a Divvy bike deliberately tried to crash into me. 

He was coming north on Canal, saw me and made eye contact, ran a red light and crossed four lanes of traffic, and tried to t-bone me, swerving away at the last minute when instead of swerving into the curb I just jerked to the right and put on speed so he’d hit the curb instead. He kept on going east on the wrong side of the road and I bolted west at about double my normal speed. I have no idea why he did it other than maybe to impress the people he was riding with, or maybe he was going to knock me off and steal my bike but saw I gave no fucks and was willing to throw down. 

Either way, I’m strongly reminded why being a frequent cyclist makes me fucking hate humanity. Between cars that passive-aggressively try to edge you into the sidewalk, pedestrians who apparently have a condition where they just can’t see you, cyclists who simply don’t know the road rules, and cyclists who are needlessly aggro and weird, city riding really lowers my opinion of our entire species. I try to counter it by being especially thankful and smiling at people who are considerate on the road, but it’s a real balancing act.  

[Description: a screencap of a GPS tracking map showing a red line running horizontally along W. Harrison St. in Chicago; there is a tiny squiggle in the line where Harrison intersects with S. Canal St. and where some dude thought he could intimidate me.]

[copperbadge]

Today for the first time I did swim, bike, and run, if not quite in that order. I did 3.25 miles on the bike, a quarter of a mile on the treadmill, and then four laps in the pool. Though if you add in the walk to the gym it’s more like a mile and a half walking/running, and I’m going to count it for math reasons.

Compared to the final triathlon distance I’m shooting for it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s 1/4 of the way there. So that’s not an awful starting place, especially factoring in that I forgot to hit my prevention inhaler and am still working on the foot injury. Someday I’m gonna come back and reblog this with a photo of my triathlon finisher results! SOMEDAY.

[copperbadge]

BRICK

So, apparently when you do two types of workouts for triathlon training in the same session they call it a “brick”, and this morning I managed one, at least a little one. I got on the bike at the gym (which was WAY better than the recumbent bike in my building) for 10 minutes/2 miles, then did five laps in the pool. I’m quite proud that I managed to get my ass to the gym at all given it was snowing and dressing for the gym but to go to work after but to get on a bus first in the snow is a complicated affair.