Take My Breath Away

I'm thrilled. I got to ride to work today and I got to ride on the newly paved portion of the trail. I'm thrilled because I pick up the trail just shy of 2 miles from my house. No longer do I have to ride along the two-lane, 50 mph highway. I don't have to dodge roadkill, broken glass, tire shreds, or copious amounts of gravel. I can now ride along, in peaceful serenity and (relative) blissful quiet all the way to where I work. It was absolutely wonderful.

This morning, I rode past Christmas tree farms I didn't know existed. Other fields contained bright orange globes among which, in the afternoon, children would scamper about looking for their favorite jack-o-latern-to-be. People were walking their dogs while others just ran. All of us are glad this part of the trail has finally been paved. I was filled with wonder, contentment, and pure glee. I smiled all morning at work just remembering the ride.

Of course, the ride had a bit of a down side. My knee caused me some pain. Not much and mostly just twinges, but I worried about how my activies the rest of the day might affect my ride home. I was slated to hit the mezzanine with 5 of my co-workers and begin cleaning it up. To tackle the job, I brought my grunge clothes along with gloves and a dust mask.

The mezzanine is a no man's land. It is where everything goes that no one knows what to do with, as we have little to no storage, and we have a legal requirement to keep the stuff. It is also where excess supplies go. But as time marched on, for at least the 8 months that I have been there, boxes got piled on top of boxes, and we started to lose things. They didn't go anywhere, we just couldn't find them in the ensuing mountain of stuff.

Well, to try and make a long story short, I got in a heck of a workout just breaking down boxes and moving things around so that there was some semblence of order in the place. All the toner, most of it obsolte as we no longer have the printers they supported, is all in one place. All the forms we use are now in one place. All the cleaning supplies were collected and put in one place. It's still dirty, nasty, filthy, dusty up there, but at least it's an organized filth.

All of that physical exertion, though, put a strain on my knee especially as I tried to go up and down the stairs that led to the mezzanine. The rise on these puppies is not exactly within code. I discovered that while I could go up more or less normally, I had to stiff leg it down, one at a time. So, the ride home might possibly be a challenge.

Once it was 5:00 p.m., I locked the doors, changed back into my cycling clothes and I was gone! Once again, I picked up the newly paved trail. It was just as wonderful tonight as it was this morning. When I arrived at the junction that was the turn-off to my street, I was compelled, in spite of the knee twinges, to just keep going. I couldn't help it. It was just so nice outside. The weather was perfect. I found it particularly interesting when I would hit pockets of really warm air. I mean a solid 10 degrees warmer. Had to be. Of course, I didn't have a thermometer with me (my Polar S720i doesn't count), so I can't really say. It could have been only 5 degrees difference, I don't really know for sure, but whatever the difference, it was striking. It was enough so that it took me by surprise.

When I got to the end of the newly paved trail, I turned around and rode back. That's when I saw her. She took my breath away. She always does. She is so solid, so striking, so absolutely magnificent. Mt. Rainier is absolutely one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Majestic is an apt adjective. No matter how long I've lived here (30 years), the sight of her never fails to leave me feeling awed. Of course, living in her shadow, I admit to being slightly biased. Okay, a LOT biased. Doesn't matter. There is no denying the majesty of her presence. Of course, if you can't see her, it means it's raining and if you can see her, then it's going to rain. Only two types of weather forecasts in Washington; either it's raining or it's going to rain.

Anyway, after stopping to take a few pictures of Her Majesty, I rode on back to the intersection that would take me to my home. Once I arrived home, I couldn't help but think I should be doing a brick. My legs felt like jelly after even such a short ride.

Going up the stairs to the back door, my knee twinged again. Some of those twinges downright hurt. During my ride I wondered about the pain. I figured there has to be some pain, right? I mean, when people do PT as part of their recovery for a serious injury, there is always some pain, isn't there? I was just hoping I wasn't crossing the line between acceptable pain and unacceptable pain. How am I supposed to know?

Whatever the case may be, I managed, over the course of the day by riding to work (4.6 miles), riding to town for my lunch and back to work (6.2 miles), and riding back home via the end of the trail (7.9 miles), to put in a whopping 18.7 miles in one hour and 23 minutes. Okay, not breaking any speed records there, but at least I was back on my bike. That was a very good thing.