Oh, and when I pulled over to stop at this park (it's called Liberty Park, and it's very pretty), a man who was (unfortunately) using a leaf blower on some leaves asked me how far I'd gone. Maybe taking a break after so few miles was wimpy, but oh, well. The last time I rode my bike, I didn't stretch (I stretched today), or, I think, drink enough water, because my left calf kind of cramped up on me when I got home. I didn't want to push it.
Today's ride was a little different. I headed out from home to the bike path (I live near the San Gabriel River path). Usually I head (west?) toward the beach, but this time I went the other direction, basically toward the city of Downey. I was surprised at how pretty it was going that way. Somewhere between my house and Rosecrans Blvd., there are a ton of horse stables and yards with horses and people riding horses and it was really cool. The horse poop on the bike path wasn't cool (nobody was riding a horse on the bike path, this must've been from earlier). I headed five miles in that direction. I saw quite a few people riding the other way, obviously going to the beach. The other riders were super friendly, lots of smiles, and hellos. I nodded and said hi when I could but at certain points my his sounded more like "hhhhhi". I was breathing hard again. After five miles I turned around (at Rosecrans) and headed back towards the beach.
The third coolest thing I bought (after 1. my bike, and 2. my helmet) was a computer. It calculates my trips, my speed, my average speed - it's totally cool. "Hey, I'm going 20 miles an hour!" (usually going downhill) makes my rides really fun. Or if some real cyclist passes me, I try for a few moments to keep up, until I lose him, and then I realized, shit, that guy was going at least 18 miles an hour. I can do it, but it's really, really, really hard, and I can't do it for very long!
Anyway, the wind was really blowing in that direction, and my plan had been to go at least 3 miles out and 3 miles back so I could, in theory, have ridden 20 miles by the time I got home (it's 2 miles from Carson to my house), however, I was kind of getting beat up by the wind, I was thirsty and possibly drooly, and so my math might have been faulty.
Let's see.
2 miles to the bike path
5 miles to Rosecrans
5 miles back to Carson
3 miles out
3 miles back
2 miles to my house
--------------------
20 miles
Yay! Is computing simple sums a sign that I didn't have a stroke or anything?
Anyway, the wind was too much, so I punked out and headed back 1/2 a mile early, and instead rode around my neighood, where I practiced making fast, low turns. Fun!
Now I'm taking a shower, and then I'm getting me and Patrick something to eat for lunch.
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