A day after the blistering heat in the L.A. area, I went out for a bike ride. In the recent cool summer months, I’ve been wearing a jacket over a long sleeved shirt while riding. Because of the heat, I only my short sleeved Long Beach Marathon 2008 shirt this time. I have not bought a cycling jersey yet. The first interesting sight I observed was an egret flying over me then while in mid-flight, urinating or defecating a few meters towards my right. Fortunately there was no breeze to blow them towards me. Then I saw the peacock again from last week and I’m beginning to think that it’s actually a pet, although it wasn’t fenced in (see: The Sights and Sounds of Monday's Bike Ride). There were a bunch of elementary school kids again boarding a boat near the Pike area, so this must be a regular outing by some schools.
One thing different about cycling is the need to concentrate more. There is hardly any opportunity to dissociate or let the mind wander like you can when running, and that’s because you have to be constantly aware of other vehicles, avoiding road debris, and controlling the bike. Because you create your own wind while riding, it feels cooler and it takes double the amount of time to achieve the same sweat rate as running. For example, I lose approximately the same amount of sweat after a 2 hour ride compared to 1 hour of running. I deliberately tried to put in more effort on Tuesday and that resulted to an increase in the average pace by a half mile per hour. During a very short stretch, a speed of 21 MPH was even reached. I went past my usual 25 miles again and the total for the day was 31. Not bad for a hot day and another step to burning the excess calories from the last weekend’s potluck at work (see: Burn Those Potluck Calories).
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