There is a bit more rain on Monday night into Tuesday morning. Thus the pavement is just wet enough to make cycling a bit messy and dangerous. I put on running shoes and go run/walk for 65 minutes. After a shower I watch the relatively boring MotoGP race from Circuit of the Americas. In the afternoon I do some cleaning up of the yard and driveway after yesterday's big winds (that came with the lightning and thunder). And then I remove furniture from my bedroom so that the carpet and up[holstery cleaners can clean the carpet on Wednesday. Late in the afternoon I get out and lift weights again - no lifting for 21 days and now two consecutive days. I need to get into a better pattern.
I start Wednesday in the dark on a 65 kilometer road bicycle ride. AGain I feel good throughout except the little northerly headwind on the San Gabriel trail slows me down. Back at home I trim the roses and think about pruning them way back now (instead of or in addition to January) since they are not really doing anything now. After a shower I clear out the remaining items for the carpet cleaning. At mid afternoon the carpets and couch is cleaned and I have to stay off of them for a while to dry. By a strange coincidence, the enighbors on both sides of me are having work done on their houses - one some AC/heat work and the other some minor unknown construction. Late on Wednesday I occupy myself with the Dodgers' game and a CSULA Zoom meeting. I go to bed just before the bottom of the ninth inning when the Dodgers get a walkoff homerun to advance to the next round of the playoffs.
I start Thursday on the mountain bicycle in the dark. I just need to get out the door or the ride might not happen. Today's ride is the standard recovery ride down to the old yacht club and back to home. There is a little motorcycle maintenance on the agenda and then I go spray the juniper pushes with an insecticide to keep the spider mites away. After a shower I catch up on the news and markets and have lunch with a relatively processional Moto2 race. But at least it was my favorite Moto2 rider who won. I spend the day rearranging and reorganizing some things. It looks like the bedroom carpet is not fully dry yet so will be another day. (That's what I get for delaying the carpet cleaning until a cool day as opposed to the hot, dry days we had last week.) Later in the day I watch some baseball playoff games and the football game.
I start Friday before 6 am opening the kitchen door and noting a slight tinge of moisture in the rain. By the time that I've taped up my blisters, put on my running clothes on, and become ready to run, the rain is coming down moderately hard. By no means is it a downpour, but its raining just hard enough to make running unpleasant. I go back in the house to read news and the markets and bide my time on the rain. I get back into running clothes and shoes get out the door an hour later than usual. The streets are wet but it looks like no more rain. At home I trim the roses and rake all of the leaves out of the rose beds that came down on Monday. I need to get down on my hands and knees and deep clean the roses beds, but maybe another day. After a shower I make a trip to the grocery store and slowly move furniture back into its place (after the carpet cleaning). The afternoon disappears with some of the baseball games split up by a workout with the weights and a new Netflix series about bad things in sports (such as points shaving or supporting your sporting habit by trafficking drugs). I have a bit of panic today since I have a 0.5 degree fever and I've lost nine pounds in two weeks. I know I've been pushing things lately, to some extent, but that weight loss is a bit much.
Saturday starts with just a ride to the old yacht club and back to home. During the ride I run into my 3rd cousin, Kyle, and we chat for fifteen minutes or so. After a quick shower I try to get to the library but the motorcycle won't start. So I put it back on the charger and read the news for a bit. After a while the bike starts up and I get to the library to pick up three new books, go to the motorcycle dealer to buy chain lube, and then lubriacte the chain when I get home. An interesting (if ultimately predictable) qualifying session for the Formula One race in Turkey accompanies lunch. And then I have a relatively slow day - no afternoon workout with the weights since I put in four workouts in five days this past week.
I take the mountain bicycle north on the Los Angeles river to avoid the detours for the Long Beach Marathon. It's a time ride - one hour up the river trail and one hour back. I trim the roses and grab a shower and sit back for a weird Formula One race from Turkey where one driver does the whole race on a single set of intermediate weather tires. The day slips by with football, baseball, and some Netflix.
I get in an extra thrity minutes of sleep on Monday and then start my day. The legs have been worked via running or cycling for the last six days, so they get a day off. I run errands and pick up supplies from Home Depot and the grocery store. I replace a couple more parts on a toilet and now it seems to be water-tight. At mid-morning I get in a session with the weights and some lifts are better and some are the same as last week. Afterwards I soend an hour scraping old paint off the very back of the house which gets beaten up badly by the sun every day. I make good progress but not as much as I expected. After a shower I relax a bit. In the afternoon the wind starts howling! And the nasty winds can be seen in the Dodgers' game as they lose and now face elimination.
Tuesday starts with a decent road bicycle ride. There's a north wind blowing so going up the San Grabirel river trail and up the Los Angeles river trail on the final leg are nasty. But I get in a good workout before the wind starts gusting and blowing as the afternoon approaches. Inside the house is just 64F so my extremities are cold throughout the day. (As I continue to try and get to 1 December before I turn the heater on.)
I'm out the door at 6:30 am to go run. Today I lengthen the run and get in eighty minutes. After a rehydration break, I edge, mow, and trim the yard. A warm shower gets me ready to grab brunch and replensih the energy stores. Today I find that the recent transfer to cPanel by my web hosting company has broken all f my Python cgi scripts. So I spend time working on fixing them but a phone call to my web hosting company is not productive at all. Late in the afternoon I get out and lift weights and then finish scraping the lower third of back of the house. I rinse this area off and will paint it on Thursday to make sure the color match is good. I get in another shower and then relax in the evening - fully expecting my back to be a bit sore tomorrow from the awkard paint scraping positions and motions.
I stay in bed until 6:05 on Thursday morning and get out the door for cycling at 6:40 am. This is just a timed recovery ride up the San Gabriel river trail. And it goes well and I finish enthused. Thus I pull out the paint and paint the external wall that I've been scraping. I've only scraped about a third of the wall, but I want to see how the finished job will look. It looks good! I still have to tidy up the edges near the crawlspace vents and air conditioning hoses, but it looks good. I'll carry on with the scraping next week and try and figure out who has an extension ladder that I can borrow to reach the top third of the wall. After a shower I do some shopping and relax. I'm pushing things now physically and some relaxation feels good. Later I have a phone call with my infectious disease doctor and watch the Dodgers' win/die game against the Giants.
I sleep very well on Thursday night into Friday morning. And sleep an extra thirty minutes since today is a day off from cycling or running/walking. Eventually I get out to lift weights, trim the roses, trim the neighbor's bush near my Internet cable, and ride up to CSULA to meet with my team. The team has decided on a Fridya at 5:30 meeting time and I expect traffic to be bad coming home. But it moves well with only a small slowdown near the 710/5 interchange.
I start Saturday on the road bicycle and get one kilometer from home and the rear tire is flat. I turn around and limp home, change cycling shoes, and jump on the mountain bicycle to ride down to the old yacht club and back to home. At home I take the road bicycle into the garage and put on a brand new rear tire and previously repaired inner tube. And then I patch the newly flat inner tube and mount that with an old tire on a spare wheel to make sure the repair will hold air. (I still have a brand new tire for the front that I should put on the bicycle one of these days.) After the repairs I get a warm shower. It will be very hot and dry today and I don't really have any activities planned. So its mainly a hang out day with the Dodgers' playoff game later.
I start Sunday morning a bit nervous on the repaired rear tire for the road bicycle. It's a brand new rear tire but a patched rear inner tube. Nonetheless I have an uneventful ride and I guess I did a good job of patching the old inner tube. AFter trimming the roses and having a shower, I go to the grocery store for supplies. When I get home I relealize that I forgot bandages, so I jump on the mountain bicycle and ride to the CVS pharamcy for bandages. (The bandages are for blisters on the feet while running.) FInally at home after errands, I implement a new constraint function that I thought of while riding this morning. This simplifies the constraints for plus and minus bounds. And it works well and I can remove the old "fudged constraints" which worked but were not as elegant. Today is a beautifull day with very chilly morning cycling conditions but a bright sunny and warm day. So I relax and regularly walk out into the sun to absorb its energy and Vitamin D and watch football and Dodger games.
I'm a bit lazy on Monday morning and I only go walk for an hour instead of running. After a shower I work on some algorithms and get my CSULA re-instated again after it was deleted. Just after noon I go out and start scraping the back of the house for future painting. I make good progress and then run out of steam. I get in another shower and relax for the rest of the day.