I had a great ride today.  Thirty-five point six miles/57 km around roads that form a loop along the coast and back south of Halifax.  Here’s the ride on Strava.

Even with the onboard power my iPhone was running on fumes when I got back.

Note to self:  Do not forget the high capacity battery the next time.

I think, on a very hilly route like this one, the onboard power can only be relied upon to slow the rate of decline of my iPhone’s battery.  It does not produce power when the speed of the bike is less than 6 miles/10 km per hour.    I spent a lot of time today just creeping up hills, and there were a lot of those.

When I was looking at through hiking the Appalachian Trail, I learned that on an elevation profile like this the hills were called PUDS, for “Pointless Ups And Downs.”  Even though I reached speeds of 35 miles/55 km per hour on some of the downhills, gravity, the nemesis of every fat guy, kept me from gaining any sort of advantage on the next uphill grade.  In fact, I think that deserves a law which I’ll call for convenience Edgren’s law: For a fat guy on a bicycle, gravity trumps inertia every time.

But enough of that.  Per Strava, here’s the stats.

I’m not proud of the time.  In my defense, though, it was lightly raining about half the ride and the road was often wet and potentially slippery. I’m not doing this to present a safety hazard to myself or others. But, to be candid, that’s not really the reason I was going so slow. If I could’ve gone faster I would’ve, but I just don’t have my road legs yet.  A couple of the hills were grades of over 10%, and I was happy just to make it to the top in any gear at any speed.   But others should’ve been easy and weren’t.  I know this will get better with time, but it’s frustrating.

On the positive side, 1,920 calories burned!  That ought to help the  weigh-in tomorrow.   I just wasn’t very hungry today, and so food consisted of a 300 gram/a little more than a quarter of a pound block of medium cheddar cheese and a pepperoni stick, washed down with two 20 ounce/591 ml Gatorades over the course of the afternoon.  When I plugged the data in MyFitnessPal and hit the close out the day button, I was amused to see this.

Well, I guess I can dream.

I texted with Heather right after I returned and she wanted me to do the blood pressure, pulse, O2 sat and blood sugar measurements I had promised I would take regularly before I left.  You might recall that all my BP and diabetes meds have been stopped by the various docs.  Here’s what we learned.

Blood Pressure

O Sat

Blood Sugar

What can I say? These numbers aren’t flukes. They are entirely consistent with what I’ve been getting since I got my dietary habits under control and began a regular program of exercise. My O sats are the one thing I can’t do much about in the short run because it will take a good while for regular deep breathing to recondition my flabby lungs and chest muscles. But I believe I can do these things, along with riding my bike a very long way, along with being in some of my favorite places in the world as I ride along. As I’ve noted, I’ve never successfully focused on my health as a volitional act. I’ve found out that I can and the results to date are very encouraging.

Another Haifax city ride tomorrow with my fingers crossed that my meds will arrive, probably including a stop at a bike shop for a look over before the bike and I hit the road. I’ll also need to find a place to do the Monday weigh-in. I’ll post the couple of photos I took on the Sambro Loop ride later today.

David Edgren