Yesterday, in the early evening, I drove over the Mendota Bridge (which I bike on all the time) and the Minnesota River Valley is green! Green! The trees have leaves (even if they aren't all fully unfurled quite yet). It was such a happy feeling to see green, bright green, in the valley.
This winter was a hard winter here in Minneapolis, and a hard winter for me. My last post was from the day after Alex Pretti was killed by our own government, not far from my house. I thought about posting things in the three months since then, but when I had something to say, I was tired - so tired.
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| Jan 23 was super cold. It was the day that everything was shut down in the metro (a little bit after Renee Good was killed and right before Alex Pretti was killed), to encourage people to connect with each other and serve the community. Instead of joining the anti-ICE march downtown, I joined about 60 of my neighbors at the nearest big intersection. |
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So I didn't post anything about our trip to Mexico the week before that, the wrist I minorly broke (slipped and fell on ice on my own damn sidewalk) the very day we came back from Mexico (but didn't confirm that until a few weeks later, after I decided I should probably go to a doctor - it was indeed a minor break), the interesting memorial service for our dog groomer of 30 years, my first non-COVID respiratory illness since before 2020, the road trip my older sister from the Bay Area and I took to visit my stepmom and then my mom and stepdad in February, seeing Macbeth (which, oddly, I never read) with my friend Marcy, my good work trip to Baltimore in March and corresponding dinner with my now-DC-based college roommate, my second non-COVID respiratory illness since before 2020, my trip to DesMoines to see a college friend, two of my Mahoney aunts' visit to Minneapolis, or my reflections on volunteering in my community after ICE showed up. Long sentence, eh?
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| My sister and me, on Deerskin Lake. |
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| DesMoines |
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| My brother Bob, my Aunts Susie and Ann, and me outside the Guthrie. We were looking at the Mississippi River. |
Recently, I've been able to get some evening bike riding in with friends and also some morning and evening solo bike rides. Until now the weather has been a little... flighty, but I think things are going to be a bit more reliable from here on out. Today it was supposed to rain on and off most the day, so I decided to do my post-winter yard cleanup instead of riding so I could just go inside when it rained. It didn't rain, and I ended up standing or hunching or crouching for over 8 hours straight (I even ate my lunch standing for some reason), so tonight will be a night of stretching, after I post this.
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| 10 days ago - no leaves at the confluence of the Minnesota (L) and Mississippi (R) Rivers on my before-work bike ride. |
Last fall, I took my road bike in and got... taller, I guess, handlebars put on my bike, so I sit more upright. It has helped my back a lot, but has been a bit of an adjustment. Because my center of gravity is higher and further back, the bike is a little twitchy and even the muscles used for pedaling up a hill are a little shifted. I didn't anticipate that (but should have), but am enjoying having a lot less back pain.
So now it is time to buckle down and get into better riding shape! The pilates classes I take 1-2x per week, the barre class I took weekly this winter, and the (woo-woo) Cardio Dance Jam class I started taking through community ed in February (another woo-woo for lateral and hip wiggling movement here!) are helpful for general fitness and strength in addition to the couple-times per week basement bike riding I did this winter (until I broke my wrist), but riding a bike outside is very different!
I'm making some plans for some longer weekend rides to build some stamina for the BikeMS Ride Across Minnesota in July. Just need to get out there!
https://events.
