Active Commute Week

Active commute week is here, and I finally biked to work this morning. I ran in the Fifth Third River Bank Run, 25K race on Saturday, May12, and it's taken my legs a lot of time to recover. I barely finished that race, but I did it! I came back from an injury and ran 15.5 miles with 6 1/2 weeks of training!

Just finished the 3.5 miles of hills! They almost killed me

So I biked to work today and left with wet hair, and no jacket, not really thinking about the temperature outside because it looked so nice. Boy was I COLD. I was freezing. My arms were bare and cold and I really needed a jacekt. Thank GOD my commute is only 3.4 miles. Running in the cold and biking in the cold are COMPLETELY different. When you are on a bike, the wind really gets to you!

Tomorrow is National Bike to Work Day! Join in the fun! Bike to work! http://www.bikegrandrapids.org/

Proud of this medal.

Why I didn't bike today

Call me a wimp. Call me a baby. I am both. The unseasonably warm weather is gone. The high for today is 43 degrees with a chance of snow flurries. I was going to commute to work by bike today but did not.

The failure doesn't stop here. The other excuses I have for not riding my bike are:

• I have a head cold or a really bad case of allergies.
• I have to run at lunch today, I'm training for the 25K distance in the Fifth Third River Bank Run and I need to run at lunch. I have to run at least 4 miles and I didn't feel like packing extra clothes or figuring out how to haul my gym bag with me. I will have to take a shower after I run. Luckily, where I work, we have showers...thus the need for my gym bag, shampoo, etc. 
• I have a professional dinner meeting after work from 5-8pm. The clothing issue looms again, and will it be too dark for me to ride home? Will the temperature plummet to freezing?

So on top of it being too cold for me, I felt overwhelmed by all that I have to do today. I can't even begin to imagine all the changes of clothes I would have had to have packed to be a bicycle commuter today.

Is being too busy a good enough reason not to ride my bike?  Am I just a lazy American?  I think the key to bicycling more often is preparation and organization. I failed today.