For one thing, the Tour de France is over, and I miss hearing Phil Leggett’s and Paul Sherwin’s voices and turn of phrase (“…and he packed his suitcase of courage…”) (“….it’s akin to bashing about the head with a rolled-up newspaper…”). You invest 21 days of recording, riding around the TdF schedule, watching, sometimes re-watching especially compelling segments and you invest so. much. time. And then it’s gone.

So then it dawns on my that I have so many hours available to ride my bike, instead of watching Le Tour. So I ride at every opportunity — commuting to my Assoc. of REALTORS weekly marketing meetings, touring broker open houses after the meeting, riding to the office, riding early in the morning, trying hang onto a fast group ride at the end of the day (that pizza and wine and socializing [that means dissecting the ride] afterwards adds to the charm of the ride that leaves you heaving and gasping and sore and improving your fitness in ways that you won’t know for days).  A solo midday hill workout. Whatever. Riding and riding and hammering, getting shelled, bridging, appreciating those who help you catch the group.

As a result, my mileage and sufferscore are well increased over June & July. And tonight I’m feeling it. A high pressure system moved into our area Friday night, which caused wind shift and heat increase. Smoke from fires NW of us moved into our area yesterday, cleared out a bit overnight, so today’s ride had smoke but not as bad. And the heat…90* at 10 a.m. 105* at 3. Higher at 5 p.m. So today’s shop ride was hot, fast, and asthmatic. I worked hard for 23+ miles before I couldn’t sustain the pace — not enough lung to keep up. I debated using my inhaler. I thought long & hard. And decided against it. If I used it, and it opened up my lungs, that meant I could go faster, harder, and breathe in more ash, which would set off my asthma. So, no.

Still averaged 17.2 mph over 43 miles. And that was just the start of the day.

Vacation looms; we’ve been under pressure to find and fix a leak in the 10 yr. old irrigation system in the backyard, which we tag-teamed yesterday and fixed. And that entire front yard is on 2 (eventually 3) drip systems, which C put right today. We have some die-off from both under-watering and over-watering. I hope the week+ we’re away will rectify that.

Our social schedule looms as well: Friends with whom we dine every Friday missed 8/15; we’ll miss the next one, they’ll miss the one after. We’re so used to hanging our that we decided 8/17 will be the night we go out and hang out. Since we’re slight on food, that works.

And we reserved bikes in Brooklyn to do the Cruiser Tour, so my HRM and my Garmin will travel with me so I can record the ride. Because why not?

August began on a semi-sad note and is finishing on a high note. Color me happy.