Sunday, September 28, 2008

Sunday Morning, 8:35 - 10:00 a.m.

Cloudy and cool after last night's hard rain. For the first ten minutes of the ride I wondered if my shorts and T-shirt were warm enough, but my body temperature climbed and I was grateful not to be burdened with the hoody.

After a summer of near continuous rain the dirt sideroads have become treacherous for cycling. The roads are washboard rough; the shoulders so soft they absorb and stop a skinny-tired bicycle like the Jake. And so I resort to paved roads -- not my first choice, but really quite fine for an early Sunday morning (no gravel trucks).

It's been over a week since I last hit the road. By exceeding an hour in the saddle I run the risk of pushing my body a little too hard, but it is the right thing to do. There is a level of anxiety that does not get worked out of the body until I hit the one-hour mark. I read in Saturday's Globe & Mail that there were over 300,000 foreclosures in the United States just this August. That's roughly the population of the Winnipeg of my youth (1970s). It's just the beginning, of course. Throw in a presidential run that defies even-tempered analysis and I wonder if an hour and a half will do the trick.

But it does. Then it's off to church, and back home to type this up as I listen to the last 30 minutes of Darko's show. Sundays were made for this.