Change of Seasons

Sun worship! Yes!

For the past two years I have been going to once-a-week yoga sessions which helped me recover from my awful first year in Ferndale, when I was bike-commuting to my coffee shop job at the airport after being evicted from my apartment in Bellingham. I developed walking pneumonia over that winter, too. By the end of the following summer I was thoroughly beat-up, dreading another winter. Yoga and antibiotics got me through. Sadly, the studio closed at the end of September when the teacher/owner had a chance to return to school. (But good for her!)

After a month of trying to practice on my own at home, needing more motivation, I signed up for membership in a gym this month. So far I've been going to yoga classes two or three times a week, with different teachers. I plan to try an indoor-cycling session as soon as I can get myself trained to get up early enough in the morning. I'd also like to have someone show me how to work the cycle, treadmill, and stair-climber machines, and help me with the weights - eventually. Just for more variety and cross-training purposes; I don't want to become fitness-obsessive.

At Monday evening yoga class this week we did many, many repetitions of raised arms stretched about the head (extended mountain pose), which isn't too strenuous really, unless you do many, many, many of them, which we did. Plus some side-planks and other shoulder work, so my shoulders, neck and upper back were very fatigued and sore afterwards.

I'd been counting on the sun for a bike ride on Tuesday, Veteran's Day, forgetting that it would also be chilly and windy. I decided to ride to Birch Bay, figuring I would have a headwind to begin with, then a tailwind coming home. Somehow the roads and the wind both twisted themselves around, though, so I only felt mild gusts from the sides and rear on the way out. At the state park I hit very strong headwinds while riding in to Birch Bay Village, but the road there, by the bayside shops and condos, was more sheltered. Riding along the beach was as pretty and sunny as any summer day, but much more brisk and invigorating.

The most powerful headwinds hit as I was riding home, on Kickerville Road and Mountain View Road. On a flat section of Mountain View, a gust of wind almost knocked me off the pavement and into the ditch and I had to stop on the shoulder of the road to wait for the biggest surges to settle. Luckily, the headwinds made the last hill-climb in to town seem easy, or maybe the wind created some sort of up-draft on the hillside. I cruised up easily, only to be slowed by the headwind on the downhill side.

When I got home I was thoroughly chilled, and very stiff and sore in the back, shoulders and neck from the combination of wind, hills and yoga. A long soak in a hot tub seemed like the best remedy, even though I vaguely remembered reading someplace that heat is not good for sore, inflamed muscles or joints. Turns out this is true, although the hot bath did feel good while I was in it. Later on, though, my spine and shoulders were so painful I had to put a cold pack on my back - not the pleasantest feeling on a stormy winter night, but better than the pain. I was stiff and sore all day Wednesday, too. So there's a lesson.

At the railroad crossing on Bay Road, near Kickerville, I had to wait for a long tanker train - BP refinery traffic, I suppose. I didn't count the tanks or time how long it took to pass, but by the time the gates opened there were seventeen cars backed up on my side, and twelve on the other side of the tracks. Rather than add to the delay, I pulled in to a turn-out to let the cars pass first. Just sayin'.