Cold.

Since the return of my bicycle from the shop on Monday I have been determined to get outside and enjoy one of my favorite activities this week. I have been up at 0530 ET each morning with the intent of burning many calories and enjoying the open road.

This morning it was 32ºF.

Not to be deterred, I ended up wearing five layers of clothes for the ride, including my snowmobiling gloves and a wool hat under my bike helmet. To be truthful, the ride wasn’t too bad though it was still chilly. I probably should have wrapped a scarf around my face to keep my cheeks from getting cold but when all was said and done I logged just shy of 10 miles over some pretty good sized hills in 53 minutes.

One of my goals this year is to not stick to the east-west routes all the time and to enjoy the challenge of the hills more often. Yesterday I road down the long hill on our road where I can usually hit almost 40 MPH on the bike, however, I only hit 30 MPH and I didn’t feel the need to ride faster. Riding down that hill is usually reserved for later in the season but apparently my exercising efforts over the winter paid off because I was able to get up the hill with relative ease.

It’s amazing how much better I feel during the workday when I do some sort of exercise in the morning. I feel energized and motivated. Tomorrow’s weather forecast shows that’ll be much warmer than it was this morning.

It’ll be good to ride without five layers of clothes on. I’ll settle for three.