What Cozy Looks Like

Monday’s Yoga and Tuesday’s Cold Wet Bike Ride Commute (11/01-11/02/10)

We had an exciting weather day on Tuesday, one that featured rain, wind, and surprisingly cold temperatures.  But I’ll get to that in a moment.  Backing up a day, to recover from Sunday’s long run, I did Gentle Hatha Yoga #1, and it was nice.  Good for the back, good for the soul.  I think yoga is a perfect recovery “work-out” to do the day after long runs.

On Tuesday, it was a chilly morning, but I assumed it would be a typical Texas morning that feels cold for about five seconds before the sun comes out and all of a sudden it’s 80 degrees again.  I was wrong.  It was a cool morning, and I wore jeans and a short-sleeved sweater over a tank top.  I was pretty comfortable during my bike ride to work—perhaps just a tiny bit cold on top but nothing to complain about.  My ride home, however, was a totally different story.  It looked like it had been raining on and off all day; when I left work, it was spittling a bit, but it wasn’t enough to discourage me from riding the bike home.  I figured I’d ride slowly and carefully, and if my bike felt unsafe in the wet, I’d walk it home.

The bike performed beautifully in the rain.  It’s a gorgeous new eggplant purple Schwinn, one which I will certainly photograph for you when we have some sunshine again.  For now, you can just take a peak at it in the top photo, parked on my patio.  I felt very safe and secure riding this new bike in the drizzly cold rain; the breaks were strong and fast, though they got a little squeaky about halfway through my commute.  Thank goodness the bike was well-behaved, because it was not a pleasant ride home.  I was very cold in my short sleeves; I even pulled my sweater’s hood over my head to keep me a little warmer.  Luckily, I had worn a scarf that morning, so I had something warm and cozy around my neck.  My hands were so cold when I got home that it took forever to get the bike locked up so I could go inside and warm up.

Once inside, I ate a hot meal and that helped tremendously.  For dessert, I made some mint cocoa and curled up with a Boston Legal DVD.  There were graham crackers to go with the cocoa, which made me feel like a kid again.  Many of the world’s ills could be solved with hot cocoa and graham crackers.  For that night, the combination was enough to solve my problems.