This morning Lance and I rode bikes to school for the first time in a long time. I can honestly say that I am already feeling the ride and it is only a few hours later. Is it okay if I admit to praying for rain this afternoon so that I do not have to ride back over to pick him back up after school on the bike? I know that sounds pretty pathetic but my hips are killing me already and I only did roughly 4 miles today. To add another 4 miles to that would be murder and torturous at best. I am realistic and know that it is going to hurt tomorrow.
I will be honest with you, we were going to ride yesterday. I sucked it up yesterday and we got out to ride and Andrew’s bike needed to have both its tires aired up. By the time that was done and I took a look at Lance’s bike and he needed some air in his tires, it was time to be in the car and on our way to school already. We were past that “window of opportunity” already. It was not that I did not want him to ride his bike yesterday, it was that I did not want him to be that late to school in the process. I promised him that we would ride today if it was not raining.
So this morning it was not raining and I was committed. I was committed even though I slept like crap last night. I did. I was committed even though I had been up since 5:00am this morning. I had. I was committed even though I felt like crap. I did. I was committed even though it looked like rain and it was likely going to rain this afternoon. It was not raining and I promised him that we would ride if it was not raining.
The ride over this morning was fine. Your body forgets how hard those things you make it do so often are when you allow it to not do those things for so long. A little respiratory bug for me is not so little and it turns into months of fighting with my lungs. So months and months later I am fed up and well I miss those rides with Lance. That is the honest truth. I miss those rides. This morning, however, I was praying for that same child to SLOW DOWN and have mercy on his mother because it was quite clear that his mother was not keeping up.
I made it to the end of the street just fine, but by the time we hit the half mile mark it was clear that even the preemptive attempt to stave off the asthma attack was futile at best. I could not breathe. It did not help that I woke up this morning with worse congestion than I went to bed with. I better not be getting another cold as I am completely fed up with the respiratory crap going around. I am not talking about the gasping for air type of asthma attack, I am talking about the my head starting to throb because it was clear I was not getting enough oxygen type headache.
Lance was in tune enough to realize that I had fallen behind and slowed down for me. Once I told him that I could not breathe he did keep his pace a little bit slower for me, but alas he is just so dang fast. It is not my body that cannot keep up with him, it is my poor lungs. My knees were holding up just fine, I just could not suck in enough oxygen to prevent the lightheaded feeling.
We made it to the school just fine and without incident. I kept telling myself that I managed to do this while taking 4 different asthma medicines and it was in this whole process that I managed to get down to the one medicine that I was on. I kept telling myself that I could do this again and this was not going to kill me as my head spun. That is hard to believe as the world is a little blurry, by the way.
The return trip was not quite so fun. See the trip to the school was mostly fine. There was a tail wind. The problem with tail winds is that when you turn around, if the wind does not shift, you are now going into an head wind. Head winds are not so fun. At least it was cool and I was going slower so I had less problems breathing. There are some advantages. The problem was that while my knees were just fine, my hips (the right one in particular) do not hold up well to those types of conditions. That is where I am feeling the pain now.
Today I rode with Lance to school. It was the first time in a long time. He is at school with his bike. There is anywhere from a 30-60% chance of rain at the 3:00PM hour. It depends on which weather app you look at on what the chances are. That is roughly when I would have to leave to go pick up Lance from school for the return home. The question is, do I brave it? Or do I wimp out and go pick him up in the car and we try again tomorrow?
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