For anyone curious enough to want to know what a typical day off is like for me, here you go. I always start a day off by sleeping as late as I possibly can. For me lately that usually means until 5 or 6 am, sometimes 7 if I’m lucky. It doesn’t matter what time I go to bed either. Trust me, I’ve tried staying up until 3 am in hopes that it would make me sleep in longer; it didn’t. Today I wanted to sleep, but it was too difficult with all the car alarms whistling away, the garbage truck idling and making all it’s loud trash pickup noises, the buses stopping and starting, the cars beeping, the neighbors whistling and yelling, the dogs barking, the birds happily chirping, and the last straw was the idiot who drove by with his loud bass-pumping music cranked up so everyone for a mile around could hear him coming.
I gave up on the sleep and went for my water. You get dehydrated sleeping, so I start every day with a tall glass of filtered water, usually about 16 oz., sometimes a little less. I jump on the computer, check for any devastating news, check my email, check for any interesting updates on facebook. At some point before leaving, I might update my status on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, but I’m not tied to that.
In addition to the usual walking I do throughout the day, which typically averages around 5 miles, I also try to speed-walk or run another 3 to 5 miles a day; oftentimes more. On a day off when I do not have to go anywhere, I actually try to compensate by walking or running more because I know it is all for me. Today when I woke and saw how nice it was outside and how warm it was quickly getting, I decided to go for a nice long bike ride instead.
For energy to ride, I made myself a breakfast of an egg white omelet with collard greens and assorted beans with a few usual extras (crushed red pepper, cayenne pepper, black pepper, hot sauce, ground ginger, oregano, sunflower seeds, ground flax seed). I splurged on the carbs and calories by toasting an entire whole grain English muffin to hold my omelet. For a side I had a banana with cinnamon and a spoonful of almond butter and fresh squeezed orange juice. I call that a good breakfast, one that will last me all day.
Before I could ride I had to fill my rear tire with air. Of course I could not find my air pump, so I had to bring it down to the gas station and pay 75 cents for a little air. I considered walking it down, but then I thought of another errand I could do, so I threw the bike in the back of my truck and drove it down to the station, ran my errand, and returned to get ready.
I filled my water bottle with icy water. I packed my little camera in my bike bag. I slid on my Bell pro gel gloves. I strapped on my road helmet. I locked up the house and set out for about a 25 mile ride. It may have been slightly less, but this is the internet so I can say anything. I actually had somewhere that I had to go about 10 miles away so instead of driving, I thought it would be a good excuse to get some bike exercise. I considered walking it, but then thought biking burns more calories and goes much quicker, so I went with that option. If I could, I would bike like that more often, but I usually can only do it on days off. It’s not easy bicycling to work and arriving all sweaty and gross to start off your day when you deal with the public.
Other than being in New Jersey and dealing with all the traffic and congestion, the ride to my destination wasn’t too bad. On bike, I take roads that are not as much travelled and I cut through parks and take shortcuts down by the river and stuff. If I wanted to drag it out longer, I could do more of the riding through neighborhoods instead of major roads; it just depends how much time or distance I want to ride. Today I did half and half.
I had so much fun riding the 10 miles there; I decided to continue riding further. I was a couple miles away from one of the parks where I like to do some walking and off-road riding. I usually bring my mountain bike there, but my hybrid is good enough in that park if I stay away from the rough parts. I got to the park, rode around a little, and then decided to do some walking. After about a half hour of walking I noticed the sky starting to turn black. The sun had gone away while I was riding and then the white clouds above all turned black. I didn’t know how long I had, but I knew that meant rain was coming soon.
Rain did come soon, before I even got out of the park. I had to pull the bike under some trees where I figured I’d wait it out. I was glad I hadn’t left the park and protection of all the trees. It got worse after a while, then let up a little, then came down like it was never going to stop. The leaves only protected me for so long. I started getting wet after a while; not totally soaked, but no longer dry. I remembered being told once that the average human patience is about 15 minutes. I’m not sure how accurate that is, especially when waiting for rain to stop. I gave it longer than 15 minutes.
At some point I was getting so wet that it wasn’t worth staying under the trees any longer. I knew there was an open men’s room not far away so I had to decide to either get more wet riding over to it so I could go under cover and not get more soaked, or take my chances with the protection of the leaves. I figured with my luck I would lose either way, so it didn’t matter much. I decided to make a break for the men’s room so I could use the facilities before my long ride home.
As I guessed, I got nice and wet riding over to the men’s room. About 3 minutes later the rain stopped. I believe that falls under one of Murphy’s laws. I started for my trip home splashing through all the new puddles. One of them on the corner of the park apparently didn’t like my tire going through it so it tried throwing me from my bike. I was able to recover my balance before falling, but only with the help of a very hard tree that my right shoulder smashed into and gave me a nice bruise.
Ten minutes into my return trip, a sprinkling and light mist returned; not enough to run for cover, just enough to keep me wet the entire ride home. With the rain and black cloud cover, the temperature had also dropped by what felt like at least 10 degrees. Actually it felt like more than that when the wind blew against my now soaked clothing, which wasn’t much to begin with (shorts and t-shirt). The last 8 miles were kind of chilly riding.
I was not to be deterred from my photographic mission however. I still managed to stop and snap off a few shots in the drizzle. A couple times Mother Nature was even kind enough to stop the rain for a few minutes. I’ll attach one or two below here so you can see that at least it wasn’t a total loss. Check my Facebook page for others.
So there you have it. A typical Ty day is to leave the house on a beautiful, warm, sunny day with big ideas and return a few hours later cold, soaking wet, tired, sore, and with a few bruises, but hopefully with a few more pictures, because that’s the most important thing – to get a few more pictures – no matter what it takes. An added bonus was that I got some bicycling exercise. It turned out to be not so much fun exercise, but I suppose you can’t expect to have fun all the time.
Water Lilly in Rahway River Park, New Jersey
White Goose
Pool closed due to rain on 6-3-2009
