Getting exercise
Life’s been very quiet at the Inlet this last week. The winds finally died, and we’ve had increasingly higher tides, so fishing is non-existent. We’re expecting full-moon high tides on Thursday, which means the tides will likely swamp the seawall. That’s always a sight to see – water in the parking lot, fish coming up through the water drains, seaweed littering every possible surface.
Meanwhile it’s been quiet, quiet, quiet; today not a single soul was fishing and the parking lot had perhaps four cars.
We took a much needed break over the weekend – Chelsea was even more tired than I, and though we got up and headed out on Saturday, we got only three miles before I suggested we quit and return home. After only a moment’s thought, Chelsea gladly agreed. We’ve been doing serious exercise every day for over five weeks, seven days a week. It’s okay to let go now and then.
Monday (yesterday) marked our first day of the official Body for Life program – after today we have eighty-two days left. We’ve kept going with our full schedule, and that’s been rough – it’s catching up with us. I didn’t think I could get out of bed today, and yesterday we didn’t get up until two hours after our regular start time. We’re sure that we’ll get through this stage soon and be back to our normal energy; we’re looking forward to that time! Until then we’ve decided to quit earlier at night and hang out a bit.
We’re still swimming almost every day, though it’s more like playing than swimming. We’re also sitting in the hot tub for a half hour or so after swimming – it really helps the muscle soreness after workouts.
Mike and Terri
Mike and Terri at Pinch a Penny talked us into a new “Earth Friendly” system for purifying the spa – Nature 2. It sanitizes and purifies by gradually releasing silver ion into the water – a small cartridge sits inside one of the filters. After each use we toss in a tablespoon of OxySpa, a non-chlorine oxygen shock which oxidizes the contaminants on which bacteria feed. The silver ion cartridge is odor free, and the OxySpa has an extremely pleasant smell. It’s made our spa experience infinitely more pleasant. Best of all, it’s chlorine free and earth friendly.
Remember the story of Mike doing that really clever fix on our hot tub vacuum? (It’s still working like a charm.) He pulled off another engineering feat…we’d borrowed our neighbor’s pool brush which comes on a long pole. With a quick quarter-turn-twist, the pole will telescope out so we can reach significantly farther into the pool, thereby shortening our cleaning time.
We’ve borrowed and returned and borrowed and returned the pole consistently since last November with no difficulties. About ten weeks ago we noticed it was harder to twist, but thought nothing of it – we put it to its shortest setting and returned it. A month or so later we needed it again. Ivar, our neighbor, said we were free to borrow it, but told us the pole was jammed and would no longer telescope, despite his doing everything he could think of to fix it.
We really needed the pole and brush, so we just put up with the annoyance of the super short setting. Last week, on our way to Pinch a Penny for chlorine, I threw the pole in the car at the last minute, thinking I’d ask Mike for ideas. Mike’s motto must be “I never met a problem I couldn’t outfox”. He took that pole and twisted and worked, peered and poked and twisted some more, and in less than a half hour he’d loosened the pole, diagnosed the underlying problem, and fixed the faulty part.
That guy is amazing…we count ourselves very fortunate to have run into both Mike and Terri. And I gotta say that the telescoping pole has made the pool-cleaning process a whole lot easier!
More cycling
Back to our cycling – I said last week that we have met our thirteen mph goal. Though we had a few days of slightly less, our average is at least thirteen. One thing I didn’t tell you is that the average we are computing is for the entire ride. That includes stopping for stop signs and stoplights, slowing to turn corners, negotiating traffic through town, slowing for cars in front of us – everything that’s involved in getting from our residential neighborhood, through several other much busier neighborhoods, through downtown Delray, and up A1A (a very busy road).
That means it takes a lot more effort to reach an average of thirteen mph. It means we are pushing on the straightaway as hard as we can; standing on our bike pedals going up hills (what passes for hills in our area); and standing on our pedals at stoplights to get our speed up.
Imagine my unbridled joy when I broke the fourteen mph level last week. I kept pushing at every opportunity; in fact, when a pace line of five male cyclists passed us on the waterfront in Delray, I was surprised that they weren’t going by faster. A quick glance at my computer showed that we were at fifteen mph, so I made a split second decision to jump on the line.
I managed to stay with them at eighteen mph for at least a half mile. I chickened out when one called to the other to stop at a red light. I slowed down, not wanting to ride up their backsides (very bad manners) if they did stop, and that’s all it took to lose them. Ah well, the knowledge that I could stay with them at eighteen was nothing short of delirious.
Best of all is that Chelsea happened to be up with me and jumped on the line behind me. She normally tends to drop back, then sprint to catch up, then I lose her again, so having her have the fun of doing eighteen mph with me was truly great. Chelsea hasn’t had the prior years of experience that I’ve had; in fact she didn’t really ride a bike until shortly before we rode across country.
Her brain injury caused difficulties with sequencing, and cycling is nothing if not about sequencing, so that slowed down her initial learning curve (though that’s now a thing of the past). She has also tended to be very nervous, especially in traffic. We’ve been working lately on little things she can do to improve her speed – she tends to average about a half-mile an hour less than I do, which adds up over time. The improvement is already noticeable.
We are both dreaming of the day that we hit eighteen mph and sustain it.
Earth friendly
Speaking of earth friendly, I thought I’d pass along a bit of information to those of you who would like to reduce the number of catalogues and the amount of junk mail you get. Catalogue Choice is a website (www.cataloguechoice.org) where you can sign up for an account, go through their list of companies, and opt out of receiving unwanted mail.
My name and Chelsea’s were each clearly sold sometime in the last few years (we’re pretty sure we know the company that is the culprit), as evidenced by the number of catalogues we have been getting, catalogues in which we have no interest at all. In 2007 we started the process, but many companies back then weren’t on the list. Yesterday Chelsea logged back on to our account, and sped right through the process, dropping our name from a dozen or more catalogues and mailers.
It’s an awesome service – it’s free, provided by the non-profit corporation Catalogue Choice, supported by donations. Since we started with them, our junk mail has gone to nearly zero.
Adios
I’m feeling great that I’m keeping up with the news around here, and I’ll continue to do so. This last weekend I did start the writing of the book about our adventures, so the next few months will likely be very brief blogs. I’ll be spending a lot of time at the computer, and after so many hours I can’t bear the thought of more time, so brevity will win the day.
Till next time…