Swimming in the details

As you might imagine there are a lot of things to do when you decide to uproot your life, particularly when you've already kind of established one where you are right now. So I've been a bit overwhelmed by the idea of packing. Ugh. And I've been trying my best to purge myself of stuff I've accumulated over the years. Tonight I got some help sorting through what is in my basement. I'm so fortunate to have some great people in my life who offer up a helping hand when I really do need it! And I'm also fortunate to have learned to accept that help when it's offered.

I also have a few more vacation days to take and I plan to spend three of them this week packing and riding my bike. If there is time I'll try to set it aside and enjoy the days I have left here - and do things like sitting in the backyard in my hammock. This place, while not perfect, has been a really great place for me to grow up over the past four years. And I literally have grown up a lot over the time I've spent here. So while it's time to move on, it's always sad to go when you leave such a special place behind.

Riding the bike has definitely been a priority this summer (not so unusual, really), however upon looking at my Garmin data yesterday I confirmed a thought I'd had: I've barely done any really long rides. Typically over the past few years I've taken to doing weekly group rides on the weekend that are always 100 km, give or take. Aside from doing the epic 167 km ride in June, I've only done a couple of 100 km rides and a handful of rides over 80 km. This is quite unusual for me. That said, I've been riding approximately 5 days per week, but all shorter rides. The past couple of weeks though, my energy has been waning and with the weather being what it is, so has my motivation. I've also started coughing a bit lately and that concerns me. The asthma has been creeping back and yesterday I realized that I've been pretty much eating whatever I want over the past couple of months and that includes the things that, while my mouth enjoys, my lungs do not. That would include bread and dairy. So, as of today I'm back to a very strict diet of no wine, no beer (although I hadn't been consuming those anyway), no dairy, no bread (i.e. yeast). It was three years ago that I discovered that this was the cause of my asthma and it only took 2 weeks at that time to stop wheezing and coughing after cutting the culprits out. I hope I have the same success this time. I guess when I ate those things and felt ok I forgot that it's ok to 'cheat' once in a while, but regular consumption ends in bad results. I think this may also be the cause of my recent lack of energy, and sore muscles. It's too bad, really. Bread and dairy are damn good! OK, the tired chick has to hit the hay. Two day work week coming up for me!!! Woo-hoo!