This first entry is my latest entry over at OpenDiary under the same name. Context readers there would know:
Candi is my live-with ladyfriend. We also live with her 20-year-old son. He quit his job about the same time I quit mine, thinking I had another job to move right into. So that's why I have free time during the day.
Free except for job hunting, which isn't going all that well. Nobody tells you you're too old. Just that they figure you'll quit as soon as you find a better job in your profession (lawyer).
Anyway, here's the actual entry:
Last Friday I went for a bike ride during late morning. Lovely day. Cool enough. Needed the exercise. Candi and I haven't been getting hardly any exercise. And so on.
She called when I was about 6 miles down the bike trail. I answered and told her what I was doing. Defended doing it, against her typical insistence that I do no exercise without her. Don't go to the gym. Don't bike. Nothing except bike to work, and I haven't been working.
I stood my ground (on this small thing). So she shifted tactics. She called the mother of her daughter's fiance to take her and her husband up on a longstanding offer to go biking with us. They set it for the Saturday morning, very early.
These people are hardcore bikers. At least he is, and she keeps up pretty well. Friday night and before we went Saturday morning, Candi was in full whine mode about how everyone was going to zip ahead and leave her way behind, where her asthma no doubt would flare up and she'd die unnoticed.
As it really happened, the woman led the way, but didn't get far ahead. The guy pedaled fast in a very low gear, keeping pace just barely ahead of Candi, while he talked with her and gave her advice about shifting gears and so on -- same stuff I've told her, but she listens to other people. I brought up the rear, emphasizing she was not going to be left behind.
We went almost 10 miles. Flat trail, except for a few hills. Afterward we went to their place, where he rebuilt her seat, which was configured wrong, adjusted her gears, and did a couple of other things, including putting a lot more air in her tires.
Candi and I biked again on Sunday, and went a couple of miles farther, but at a much greater pace. She was whizzing along with her full tires and I suppose new confidence. It was a bit of a workout for me, instead of the normal plodding attempt to keep from falling over from going so slowly.
So that was three days of biking for me out of three, and four out of five counting a couple of days earlier when I didn't tell her I went out.
Today I said when I was taking her to work I was going to go ride. She fussed, but gave up on it. She insisted I text when I go, when I'm halfway, when I'm back at the car, and when I'm home.
Despite that, I had a grand time. I took a hilly trail we'd done before, but zipped through it. Then explored a connected trail that ended up in a neighborhood. Then was going back over the route in reverse when I saw yet another trail heading off around a pond you can't see from the road, so I went around that. Did nearly 2 hours. So that's five good rides in 8 days.
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