Jigsaw Puzzle

An artist at work!

It's been a while since I started a Jigsaw Puzzle. This one is 1,000 pieces of fun, I think? As I started to work through it with a friend it became really clear that the blue sections were going to be really tough to figure out. They are. The easily identifiable pieces are done. The reds, greens and other unique colors are the easy ones, the blue colors in this puzzle are rough to say the least. It's making my head hurt, and that's usually not too easy.

It's Time to Ride My Bikes Again

That's me at some point during Riding to Recovery.
That's my boy Tugboat R.I.P.

It's been too long since I've ridden every day, or even close to it. You see,  I was hit from behind by an SUV in March of last year and it took me months of recovery to get over the long lasting effects of my concussion. I had extremely bad Vertigo for a very long time. I had no idea that Vertigo had so many symptoms, or that they were a part of recovering from
being concussed. Every day for months I felt shaky all over. I’d feel like the floor was spinning, and sometimes when I’d get up from a chair I’d fall back into it. It was ugly. I didn't dare ride a road bike. Instead I rode on bike paths that were wide, safe, an my bike of choice was a fat tired 29er. I also had some long-term issues with composing sentences as I wrote them. Writing is something that I love to do so that was a big hit so-to-speak. I'd type words twice, omit other words, and then the final problem to dog me was that I'd double type prepositions! Go figure.

An EMT friend of mine who just luckily

I nicknamed her the SuperHeavy -- 10K plus miles 

happened to be a part of the Southern Marin Rescue team that carted me off to Marin General Hospital on that ugly day last March, said to me recently, "The brain is a mystery." He'd laughed when I told him about the double prepositions thing. The brain is a mystery. The EMT’s name is Chris Lawrence and he also rides bikes. He’s an extremely good bike handler. I've seen him ride down sections of singletrack that no one else can clean. 

Lately, the problem for me in getting back onto my bikes has been my fitness. I weigh 20 lbs more than I did two years ago, and I’m two years older now. My cardio is maybe fifty percent from where it was back in the day. Aarf! So that’s a bummer. The good news is that I've overcome worse. My new goal is to get back down to 170 lbs before the end of this year. I can do that. All of the usual suspects will play into achieving that goal. No beers, a solid and healthy diet, and lots of miles on my bikes. My new work commute alone will shed weight. I’m up to the challenge. Bring it on.

I nicknamed her the C-Nago -- 20k plus miles

So, as of today I’ll write about each of my rides, just as I did during Riding to Recovery. I'll share my progress.  I hope to share some fun stories just as I did a couple of years back. After doing 1,000 consecutive rides, rain or shine, and almost beating Mark Weir’s one Million Feet of Climbing in one year was fun. Now I’m ready to have some fun again, but with different goals in mind. I have no idea yet where this is going. My seat belt is on!

This was the post that I wrote after reaching my last goal of doing 365 days of consecutive rides for Riding to Recovery. I’ll never regret that journey. The first year took my breath away. Doing another 635 rides were icing on the cake.