My Shadow’s the only one that rides beside me (except for bees)

I love this song…

Boulevard of Broken Dreams, by Green Day

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
‘Til then I walk alone

I love to see my shadow when I’m on my bike. I snapped this picture of my shadow …it was pretty tricky aiming the camera phone while riding!

When I see my shadow, I like to watch my upper body to check my ability to keep it stable. If I catch a glance at my sideways profile, I like to observe my aero position.

Which reminds me, I still need to take some video of myself riding on the trainer and measure my angles in the new position. Still not sure about it. The new aero position seems to make my hip muscles sore. I don’t know if that’s just something my body just needs to get used to, or is this new position less powerful? Also, I’m attacking hills differently, so maybe that’s what’s causing the hip soreness. The day after my bike rides, my running is awful because my hips are so tight. I suppose I ought to have a stretching routine. So many things to figure out!

I had two bee incidents on my bike recently. AND – BEES FREAK ME OUT!

Bee #1

The other day, I had just refilled my aero bottle with water and was going for a drink of water from the straw, and I hit a pothole – bumpity bumpity bump. Just then, a bee got inside my sunglesses and was buzzing loudly. It really freaked me out. I grabbed my sunglasses off my face and the bee flew away. Luckily, no sting.

A minute later, I looked down at my computer to check if it was still there – and NO – it was GONE! It had fallen off back at the pothole. I rode back to the biggest pothole I saw and figured that’s the one I hit. No sign of my computer. I continued on, and then noticed another, smaller, pothole. I stopped and looked around there. I noticed a bee buzzing right over the pothole. Probably the same one that freaked me out. Then I looked in the middle of the road, and there was my computer. YEAH!

Bee #2

On yesterday’s ride, I got stung by a yellow jacket. I didn’t see the bugger, but based on how it felt, I’m pretty sure it was a yellow jacket. I was riding on a busy road. (I’m not afraid to take short stints on busy roads to get me from point A to point B.) I was in aero postion and felt something on my forearm. I thought my skin was just rubbing the worn edge of the elbow pad, so I lifted my arm and put it back down. Then I felt a sharp stinging pain! There were cars going by me, so I had to contain my urge to freak out. I lifted my stung arm slightly while still holding onto the aero bar for control, then I used my other arm to brush the culprit off. It really hurt, so I pulled off the side of the road to inspect the damage. There was a small spot of blood, but no sign of the bee, and no visible stinger in my skin. This happened at the beginning of a 2.5 hour workout – and my arm hurt the entire time! Today, my arm is a little swollen and very itchy!

Here are two pictures of my arm. The first one is just the plain photo. The second one I photoshopped to enhance the swollen bee sting area, CSI style. If there was more crime in Chapel Hill, I could get a job doing this!!!

Hey, Bee #1 and Bee #2 reminds me of this kid’s TV show: “Two bananas in pajamas, B1 and B2”! My daughters loved the two bananas show! It aired around the time of the Barney era.