Fall/Winter 2010/2011 Commuter Challenge!

This winter I started commuting to work and I love it!! It makes my day so wonderful and stress free. I live in southeastern North Carolina and it has been so cold. But, with the proper layering, I have had no problems. I commute 3 days right now, and I am working up to a 4 day commute, using Fridays as my drive to work day to do errands etc. I have ridden in the wind, 20 degree weather in the mornings and light rain. My commute is 4.5 miles one way. I love being car free. Not to mention the morning quiet before the world awakens is amazing. You see things you don't see when your driving. Any one who has been considering commuting should give a try. I feel great, helping the environment, and keeping costs down by not using my car.

good for you, oceanwaters!!! :D
I, too, love the morning commute when it's so quiet and still. That's my absolute favorite time!!! I hope you keep enjoying your commute. Plus, it's kinda fun when people say surprised "you RODE today??"
But then, I sometimes get the "jerks" who will ask "what- you didn't ride today" when it's snowing or sleeting or like one day last week when the wind chill was below zero and I was sick. :rolleyes:

Been a while, was without any internet the past 5 days -- withdrawals anyone?

My winter commuting is right on track, 5/5 last week, running 2/2 so far this week. Been riding my road bike (Radac) cuz it is just more enjoyable to ride and the weather has not been that bad. I liken it to the "If I had my life to live over again" poem ... ride the good stuff.:D

My LBH restored my commuter bike's zen. :) My bruises are fading. This week has been warm and nice. I almost took the Felt to work today. We still have a little ice in the mornings, though, and some puddles from snow melt. I guess I have to be patient a little longer. This week is 4 for 4.

Deb

Well, the goal was 4/5 days to commute, I did 3/5....next week....

Lovin to commute to work everyday possible. Still working up to 4 days a week, if the weather will give me a chance! Can anyone relate to that? It's so much fun, addictive, and I am also finding creative ways to get my errands done by bike, that includes bringing home a rotiserrie chicken for dinner! I am fortunate that everything I need is right by work. Anyone else doing the same things? How goes it?:o

0 for 5 this week. Sigh.

Deb

2 for 2 this week. I have to commute on DC's streets since the trail that I normally take is still covered with snow and ice. The best part of my commute this week happened on the way home today. I was behind a car at a traffic light in downtown DC. A little girl (about 10) in the back of the car turned around and looked at me. She turned back around. She turned around again, looked at me and gave me a thumbs up. It made my week. :)

I biked before the storm, walked until the roads were clear, and biked today. My training definitely has taken a bit of a break but I'm not too worried about that, because I had 2 good runs this weekend, and all the walking I did was not trivial.

The first run was a 5K. I placed in my age category, which was one goal I had for the next 3 years while it is still easy. (When you hit 40, the competition goes up, apparently.) I found the other lady in my category and told her "Congratulations on placing 2nd in our age category!" She looked bewildered.
"But I was near the end."
"Well, there were only 2 of us." She laughed and congratulated me on my 1st place.

More importantly than placing, I ran it in 26:38, about a minute faster than my wildest dreams. (Not that I dreamed about this much, or gave it much thought at all.) I was VERY pleased with my time.

The next day I did a trail run with the local multisport group. The powdered snow was like running through sand. We go 45 minutes out and turn around, so overall we sort of finish together. I could barely maintain a jog at the end. When one guy passed me, then stopped running and walked, I walked with him, and possibly we were walking faster than I had been jogging a moment before.

I did that in my vibram five-fingered KSO Trek's. There are muscles in my ankles and the tops of my feet that I didn't know about. Those ached. Worst was my hip that I injured a couple weeks ago. I thought it had healed up, but it ached a whole lot.

With those two runs behind me, I didn't worry too much about missing spin class. I've been better about keeping up on my core exercises too. With all this walking on snowy and icy roads, I've slipped and caught myself so many times it's amazing I haven't fallen or wrenched my back--I attribute this to a stronger core. So I had some motivation to get back to my core exercises!

4 for 4 this week. Not too much excitement during the commutes. It was extremely windy on Wednesday and I got blown over the double yellow line on the road. Fortunately, no cars were coming. Yesterday morning's commute was very, very cold. My water bottle froze during my 15 mile ride. Looking forward to what looks like warmer temps next week.

Congrats on your running, Melalvai!

Wow, it's been too long...congrats on the running Melalvai, and awesome story, pfunk12! I love love love moments like that on the bike.

So after I was almost done with my overhaul I realized that my shifting problem wasn't just the cables & housing -- my rear derailleur was toast. Darn. So another delay meant 0 for 2 the week before last, then I was on a work trip last week. Tuesday was a snow day...but FINALLY yesterday and today I got the studded tire on the front, bundled up well, and rejoined the commuter ranks! :D

Yesterday I tied my 9 degree F record (kinda secretly hoped that it was going to be colder :rolleyes:) and just felt overjoyed despite the chill. This morning I was on a complete high - the bike is working perfectly, alpenglow on the mountains, the sun is coming up distinctly earlier...and had just enough time for a reward of an espresso before jumping on the bus. Of course the ice/snow/slush means the pristine bike got re-baptized by winter muck, but it'll be way easier to wipe down with the fresh wax & new chain. YAY winter commuting!!!

Rolling along at 100% bike commuting. We've been pretty fortunate in the Pacific NW, almost balmy compared to other parts of the US.:)

I've switched back to the SUB and panniers as I am dealing with hip nerve issues since somewhere I whacked out the pelvis. My chiro has been great, I am doing some additional physical therapy and will hopefully be back 100% in not too long.

I told her the time I experience the least amount of pain is when riding. I cannot sit (any leg to hip angle) for more than a few minutes.:eek:

Friends said I should get a bike seat chair for work :D We joked maybe work would let me bring my trainer in and mount my bike for working at my desk. As it is, I have to either kneel on a cushion or stand.

4 for 5 this week (assuming my ride home this evening is completed incident-free :cool:). I tried doing one-legged pedaling drills on my ride home yesterday. My legs feel it - from riding 4 days, not so much b/c of the drills. I am so out of shape. :o

Today, it was 50 degrees (10 C) at 6 a.m. It's supposed to get a bit over 70 (21 C) this afternoon. I'm quite confident I will have too heavy of clothing on (my lightest LS jersey) and may just be wearing my baselayer (a tech t-) for the ride home. It's been such a cold winter, I have forgotten how to dress for mild days. :p

4 for 4 this week. You're right about the weather, 7. It's crazy. Just the other morning I was wearing my PI Amfib tights and this morning I was in shorts and my leg warmers. Last night I commuted home in my shorts and short sleeve jersey. But...I'm not complaining. :)

3 for 5 this week. Wish I'd done all 5 because the weather was amazing, but after the bike crash on Tuesday, I drove on Wednesday. Next week I'm aiming for all 5 days.

Glad you're back at it TriGirl, and hope the road rash etc. is totally gone soon!

3 for 3 this week, SO. HAPPY. BIKE. COMMUTING!!! Back into my goal range too!

Today was especially great - got to leave work early and do an extra-multi-modal trip. Work to light rail to bike path to meet a CO TEer and get a saddle for the next bike build, then biked back (uphill! headwind! extra miles!) to the light rail to the bus to then bike home -- a really nice guy caught me on my first hill and we rode together and chatted almost all the way home. Most excellent.

Oh and no more headlight needed in the a.m., really only about 1/2 the way home, too. I am certain we're still due for some big snow, but the light is returning and I'm betting the worst (best??) of the cold is behind us! :cool:

3 for 5 this week for me, because I needed the car straight from work on Mon and Tue. It's been so warm the last couple of days, which has made for very wet roads.

Today was the first ride (home) in which I didn't wear a jacket.
Mid-50s, sunny, but with a cool North wind. LS jersey with a LS base, and I was fine. Winter jacket was rolled up in a ball and unceremoniously stuffed into my pannier! :cool:

Stealing this from BikeJournal.com's Commuter Century posting. Thought it was very cute....
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LcudaQU3mk...00/itsokay.gif

that blog is great!!! I just looked through the whole thing. I'll be following it for sure! :)

I got out of the habit of my weekly report on here so I'll sum up.

Commuting isn't a problem anymore. When the roads were bad I went on foot. I want to get studded tires for next winter. But if we move, the next place is just over a mile away from my work so I'll probably walk all the time.

My take-it-easy-when-I-need has been good. I haven't needed it as much, but there was one day in particular. I wasn't sick, I was super emotional (and for a change it wasn't hormones). I finally decided I could just allow myself the day to be crazy and irrational, not demand much from myself, and the next day I was fine. We'll see if I continue to do as well since I have 4 grant deadlines in the next 2 months.

My training goals have been going pretty well. I didn't end up sticking to as strict a regimen as I had originally envisioned. I took advantage of other opportunities as they came up, because the social aspect of training & exercise is more of a motivation for me than the strict plan. So if there was spin class, I'd go. If there was a group run, I'd go. If I'd done quite a lot of exercise, maybe doubling up because I swam AND went to spin class, I'd take a day off.

I heard a speaker who said that there are 4 common approaches to exercise: social, logical, default, and organized. Depending on your personality one or more of these approaches will be more successful than you. Logical is typically a more male approach, a "Just do it" where you get in, do your 30 minutes, and get out. It tends to be the opposite of social where you see someone you often run with and one of you says "Hey, want to run after lunch?" because just seeing the other person reminds him of the run. Default is like me, where I bicycle for transportation and it doesn't even occur to me that there is another way. Organized is where you get it in your calendar (and you're the type who follows your calendar).

It's a combination of default & social that drives me to exercise.

Well, winter is pretty much over, and I totally screwed it up right at the end. Every time I ran, my calves were sore for 3 days after. Since I was running twice a week, my calves were NOT sore for about 1 day each week. I kept thinking this should start to get better, that eventually I should be able to run without having sore calves for the next three days.

Finally in frustration I ran 3 days in a row.

In retrospect that wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. My calves were very sore and I stayed off them the rest of the week.

By Sunday my calves felt fine. My left ankle was a little sore but nothing bad. So I joined the Sunday noon group and ran again. For an hour.

When I ended the run I knew I had made a big mistake. It's Thursday now, and I'm trying to be thankful (and hopeful) that I didn't permanently damage something. I have not run, I biked one day because that didn't seem to hurt, but by the end of the day I realized I was doing all the pedaling with my right leg, and I had the arch of my left foot on the pedal, so that the ankle wouldn't be flexing & extending with the pedal stroke. I'm SO tired of sitting!

Wouldn't you know it, the pool closed a couple weeks ago for window replacements and hasn't opened back up because they're trying to fix a leak. :( So I can't swim, can't go for walks, but I can sure feel sorry for myself!!

I know you are supposed to ramp up with the vibrams and I didn't really do that. I jumped right into hour and longer runs. I did go for a couple shorter runs but I got impatient. What's the point of running for 20 or 30 minutes? Well, that's 20 or 30 minutes longer than I will run all this week and probably next. (I only hope it takes just 1 or 2 weeks.)

The other thing was, when I first got the shoes I ran with a slap-slap-slap sound. I asked someone about it and he said the shoes train you to run on the balls of your feet to avoid the slap-slap-slap. So I was consciously trying to run on the balls of my feet and that's pretty much when the ankles went. I'll stick to slap-slap-slap from now on.

Since I started training in September, I've injured my right shoulder, my left shoulder, a tiny little muscle inside my hip (adductor maybe?), my left knee started complaining again, then my calves were constantly sore, and now the ankles. (The left one is really bad but the right ankle hurts a little too.)

I have a new goal for the spring: no more injuries. I'm confident I can finish the triathlon, and that's all I care about. I don't need to do it fast. I have no intention (or likelihood) of placing. I am done with the "training" mindset. From now on, my own pace, my own distance, and I probably should avoid running with groups.

I've had a lot of time to think about this while not running...while sitting around home waiting for supper because my ankle is so sore at the end of the day...my family is so sweet!

I've also gotten lots of progress on the 4 grants due between now & May 2! :eek:

Here's to injury recovery and injury-free spring, Melalvai! Continue to be gentle with yourself and find the mindsets that work!

The past two weeks have been mostly travel-filled, so not as much commuting. Which means its nice for me to still have another week of the challenge to help give me the good inertia!

I got 100% for February, helps make up for the setbacks in January. With a little prep and some luck with the weather I should be in good shape for the whole fall/winter goals.

Since I got into Ride the Rockies (412 miles, 6 days, mid-June!!) my commuting might occasionally take a backseat to training, but sure glad I stayed on the bike over the winter!

I've been off the thread for a while, but have been( mostly) maintaining the commute everyday. I had one week of bus riding during the big snow dump because I was taking my daughter to camp two miles away, and she's too new on a bike for snow riding.

Melalvai, sorry to hear about the injury. I think I read an article in running magazine about vibrams and freerunning shoes vs the heavily cushioned ones, and I think the take home message was that if you are a heel strike runner vibrams will cause a lot more damage than if you are a ball of the foot runner. So they are not for everyone. good luck finding a stride/shoe combination that doesn't cause you grief.

Winter is officially over in a few days so I guess we'll be going back to the regular "How was your commute today?" thread. So I thought I'd wrap up.

My ankle is healing. I ended up with a boot that I was supposed to wear for 2 weeks. I wore it all weekend and continued wearing it even though my ankle was no longer hurting all the time, because my ankle would get tired. Yesterday I went all day without it and felt pretty good.

I feel completely comfortable ignoring the doctor on this one because I'm collaborating on a study of joint injury to find out whether immobility or exercise is recommended. Opinion is currently divided on that. So much of what we assume is "evidence based medicine" is actually nothing more than tradition. Without "evidence" I have to rely on my best judgment.

My best judgment right now includes being very careful, being slow & patient about getting back into training.

That was a digression. Anyway I've been bike commuting (again not "supposed" to, but since it doesn't hurt I do it). The pool is STILL closed--leaks repaired this summer didn't hold and are being repaired again. :( I'll wait a few more days before I take up walking, and then start slow and small with the running. Spin class and long bike rides are still out; while a 5 mile round trip commute doesn't hurt I don't know if a longer distance would and so I'll work back up to longer distances in the hopes of preventing re-injury or new injuries.

I'm not convinced yet that vibrams are wrong for me. Someone told me they only work for 1/3 of the population. Assuming that they really do mimic barefoot that's like saying 1/3 of the population is born wearing shoes. I believe this is like all my other injuries--too much too fast. So I'm going to try again with them, starting with walking and slowly, slowly work my way up to running long distances on the balls of my feet.

Happy "fair" weather cycling and see you all next fall!

Welcome to the first day of spring. Thanks to everyone who participated in the challenge!

I got pretty close to my goal - 72.5% of my office days vs. my original goal of 75%. I'm happy because I improved from last year, and was out a couple times in conditions that would have stopped me in the past. And just love that I've committed to year-round commuting...it's such a joy!

Oh yeah and I saw lots of animals, enjoyed holiday lighting, and saw the first flowers of spring from the bike. No puppy petting, but it's just starting to be puppy season. :)

It's been great checking in with you all...happy 'easy' season (for the northern hemisphere folks that is) and many happy commutes!