It started to warm up this week – the forecast called for several days in the low 50’s, warm enough to get back on the bike. I have to admit that I am a serious weather wimp – I don’t like to be cold and I don’t like the layers needed to stay warm on a cool day. The result is that I only ride from May to September.

The only winter exercise I really enjoy is downhill skiing, which is much too equipment and travel intensive to be done frequently to provide regular exercise. This year Carolyn and I decided not to ski because we were worried about getting hurt and screwing up our bike ride. I was getting a bit of exercise by walking the steps at work, but that aggravated the pain I’ve been having in my right foot, so I gave up stair walking to give it a chance to heal.

I have no idea what I did to my right foot. It just started hurting last fall. Our friends have been helpful trying to diagnose it based on their own aches and pains. Stress fracture? Plantar fasciitis? Gout? I really should have gone to a doctor about it, and I didn’t.

Then there’s my shoulder problem … which starts to hurt whenever I’m on the bike for a long period of time. Not at all pleasant, it feels like someone is stabbing me in the back with a hot soldering iron. I saw a massage therapist last fall and he helped tremendously. Even better, he gave me an idea of what was causing the pain, and exercises I could do to make it go away – which would be great if I had actually done them.

Last (and least) there is my ankle problem, which started back in college when I decided to train for a marathon by running on the beach. I gave up soccer a few years ago because every time I played, the ankle pain flared up.  Then it took longer for the pain to go away than the time between soccer games. Sigh. At least that one isn’t a problem on the bike.

So, between not skiing to avoid new injuries, and not stair walking to baby an existing injury, I got seriously out of shape this winter, even more than usual. I was really proud of losing 12 pounds last summer by riding hard, but I regained every one of those pounds this winter. And it wasn’t nearly as hard to gain them back as it was to lose them in the first place.

Meanwhile, while I spent last summer riding hard to get in shape, Carolyn spent last summer watching old movies on TV. It wasn’t her choice – she usually can’t stop moving. But she had developed osteonecrosis in her right knee, and 2 doctors told her the best way to handle this problem was to JUST STOP MOVING.  But she has a really hard time with that, so she swam and kayaked and did as much as she could without using her right leg. But now she has chronic pain in that knee, which is not quite the same as the pain she has in her left knee, which was the aftermath of a torn ACL in 2002.

Getting old sucks.

This morning, right after Dana got out of the shower, he dumped the contents of his bicycle clothing drawer onto the bed.  He pawed through it, choosing the best shorts, the best shirts.  How much does each thing weigh?  He started muttering about whether he should weigh his underwear.

He is way too excited about this trip.  But the way he figures it, the more time we spend planning, the more time we are actually enjoying the trip.  So I am working on enjoying this trip.  For him, and for me, but mostly for us.  And I figure if I get into better shape, I will enjoy it more.

Not that I’m not in decent shape.  Granted, I am big, way bigger than I should be.  And by big, I mean fat.  But I’m strong, and I work out, and play tennis, and ride my bike, and hike, and lift weights, etc.  But I’m not in “riding my bike for 2200 miles” kind of shape.

One of the most challenging aspects of long distance cycling is that it is, literally, a pain in the ass.  The best way to avoid this is to condition your ass, which means riding through the pain at the beginning of the season, so that eventually you are numb to the pain.  So we set up a bicycle trainer in our family room, and I started to ride it a few times a week.

Of course, the bicycle trainer, like our panniers, is over 20 years old.  And while I think it’s still perfectly good, Dana wanted to buy a new one.  Which we did not do.  And maybe that’s why he never rode the trainer, not even once, all winter.

Or maybe it’s because riding a bicycle trainer is boring. Like watching-paint-dry boring, but with more ass pain.  I found that I was more likely to train if I was hooked on a TV series.  So I watched Breaking Bad and Nurse Jackie, and even a few episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

But really, I’m not a big TV watcher, so I’m glad spring is finally here.  A few days ago, I went for my first training ride.  It wasn’t much, only 10 miles to the supermarket and back.  But it’s a start.  Today I rode almost 20 miles, with the panniers – which actually have some birdseed in them!  Dana brought his bike to work, so he can train during the warmest part of the day.  He will be in better shape than me instantly.  He is much better on a bike than I am.  Oh, well.

But for me, training for this trip feels like studying for finals in college.  Just keep putting it off, there’s always tomorrow.  Then the day of the test arrives, and I’m sitting there freaking out because I haven’t studied at all.  So I’m probably going to be in serious pain the first week of our trip –like a D-on-the-midterm level of pain.

I apologize if either of us has been talking about age too much in this blog.  Other than the 57-thing, this ride has nothing to do with age.  Unfortunately, I keep bringing it up because I have an age problem.

Basically, my problem is that I spent most of my childhood being the youngest – the youngest cousin, the youngest amongst my friends, the youngest in my college class.  And people sometimes called me a baby, which some might consider a term of endearment, but I’ve always considered an insult.

A baby, by definition, is naïve and innocent and knows nothing, and I’m pretty sure that doesn’t describe me.  Besides, as an AARP member, I think this baby thing is just getting – well – old.  But now many of friends are younger than me, and I sometimes pull the age card on them, because I love being older and not the baby.  Which isn’t nice, and I should stop.

Talking about age and pointing out age differences (some people define a vast difference as one year), is just a way to make people less equal.  And that’s wrong, so I don’t want to go there in this blog.  Besides, wanting people to think I’m old is dumb, because, as Dana and I learned a few years ago, all roads lead to Meadow Brook.

We learned about Meadow Brook thanks to my mother.  My mom lived independently for 22 years after my father died.  Then, one day she called me and said “This is it.  I’m done.  I need to move up by you, into one of those places.”  And since I was a well-trained child, I found one of those places for her.  It was an assisted living facility called Meadow Lodge.

For some reason, even though my mother’s mind stayed sharp right until the end, she never could get her head around the name Meadow Lodge, and insisted on calling it Meadow Brook.  And so Dana and I started referring to assisted living, and nursing homes, and memory care centers, and all the different flavors of advanced senior living, as Meadow Brook.

So I think my real problem with age is that, indeed, our road will probably lead to Meadow Brook, and we have no desire to get there any time soon.  So we need to get off of this age thing, away from any desire to sound old and complain about our age.  Given the choice between Meadow Brook and babyhood, I’m going with babyhood.

I hereby reserve the right, however, to complain about my knees.  My knees are old. And they suck.