Took this while I was panting and wheezing and considering the alternative hobbies life might enjoy. I’d just gotten off my bike, the first exercise I’d had in a week since I couldn’t shake my illness and the first time I’d been on the bike for two weeks for other shameful reasons.

I’d decided late this evening that the weather was nice. It was a beautiful day. And I allowed myself to ignore my coughs and listening as I rationalized how I felt so much better, really. And I did, on the sofa, or in a chair or on the bed. I even felt good pedaling off my little neighborhood street, and then over the freeway and through the old neighborhood and all of that was fine. Right up until the first little hill, where I realized I couldn’t take any breath into my lungs.

It felt a lot like pneumonia, but without the pain, so at least there is that.

My route was going to be a simple one. A few weeks ago I saw a guy riding up the ramps of one of the parking decks and I thought That’d be fun. So I laid out a little route to get two of the parking decks. I figured this would be about six miles all told, just enough to stretch my legs and get the parking decks off my mind.

So I did the one and then the other and I thought, There are those other three parking decks … so then I had to do those. Four of them were great fun. The fifth one, the oldest one, was a bit narrow and sketchy. It has a nice view of … rooftops, though. So I sat up there and had a banana and smelled the smell of the barbecue coming from next door and looked out over the air conditioning units and satellite receivers of downtown and feeling a little like Batman, which is to say self-conscious in spandex.

About that time The Yankee texted me that she was going for a ride, so I descended the parking deck, got back on the road and had a woman almost pick a fight with me because she doesn’t understand traffic laws or how she almost hit me. She had her window down, so she heard my reaction to all of this. Anyway, I went back through another old neighborhood, by one of the city parks and up a little hill where I met the local riding group coming from the other direction. So I felt the need to make a good showing for them, standing up out of the saddle and smiling when I really wanted to be panting and moving listlessly. My legs felt OK, but it seems my lungs aren’t as over being sick as I’d like them to be.

Down another two hills and then onto the back of the local time trial route. On one end I passed my beautiful bride smiling and riding the other direction, “I know you!” she said.

So I turned around to follow her, but she was off like a rocket. Took me forever to catch her, and that was just before she got back home. Somehow my two parking deck, six-mile-or-so adventure turned into a nice 20 mile meandering course. Watching the sunset I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it. I told her that I regretted the ride, which seemed the wrong thing to say after a bit. I’ve only regretted one ride, and that was just the abrupt and unexpected end of that particular ride, really. I didn’t regret today’s ride, just how I felt on it, and that it had been two weeks since I’d been in the saddle.

Hate when that happens.