RIver of Dreams

"In the middle of the night, I go walkin' in my sleep…" This song by Billy Joel seems to fit the last few days on a few different levels: sleepless nights, and riding by the river.

The past few days I've been fighting a nasty cold. It's not been quite bad enough to keep me home, but it's been enough to keep me going just a little slower at everything from thinking, to my reflexes, to my riding. The first thing I notice about myself when I get sick is that my temperature regulation goes. When the weather warms up and I try to do a full effort ride, that means that I'm sweating a lot more. So the past few days I've been doing slower rides, keeping my heart rate down to the mid-150s and lower. It takes a little longer, but at least I'm not so hammered by the end of a commute that I can barely ride straight, and I still have the clarity to respond to things happening around me.

This same cold has kept me up the past few nights. Two nights ago I had to take another cold pill in the middle of the night. After that I still couldn't sleep, so I read a few chapters in Blazing Saddles, the history of Le Tour de France. After a couple of chapters I could breathe again, so it was off to bed.

Well, also related to this cold, I decided to take the Jordan River Parkway Trail home the other night. It's been a while since I've ridden that. I found that it is actually longer than several other of my commute options, and I tend to limit my own speed along it. Well, I was also limited by my ability that day as well. It was fun, though, to ride by the river, see so many other cyclists, joggers, and people out strolling. I saw a squirrel -- or was it a chipmunk? -- several birds, including quail. Kind of a fun ride, even if it took me half again as long as my usual commute, 45 minutes up from 30 typically.