Post Turkey Day Blues

It’s always rough recovering from the tryptophan-induced doldrums after Thanksgiving.

This year was especially rough, having two Thanksgiving affairs to attend back-to-back. You see, my family, on occasion, has rescheduled Turkey Day to the following day in cases where some one had to work on Thanksgiving. And this was such a year.

With Flemingfest put off until Friday, that allowed Jessica and I to join her relatives, the Bradys in their Thanksgiving festivities. We dined at the Salt River Grille in Rumson, NJ, nestled right next to a small bay on the New Jersey shore. And Friday we headed up after work to Pleasantville in Westchester for a slightly belated, but nonetheless Thanksgivingful Fleming Thanksgiving. For each occasion, Jessie had worked her magic, and there was cookies and cakes galore.

But after two consecutive Thankgivings, it leaves you a bit, well, swollen. So, here I am, corpulent and ready to get on that old clunker of an orange Canondale and duel with the wind and hills for months on end.

I kicked off my training for the Tuscon century ride 2007 by popping in an exercise video this morning called Spinerals. This video was a part of a very generous birthday gift from a fellow TNTer, Janice. She got me all this stuff that should help a great deal with all the cramping that I went through this past summer.

To be honest, I am not the exercise video type. Even the idea of going to an exercise class just rubs me the wrong way. It’s simply that I don’t like having orders barked at me. So, having a guy on a TV screen do so is even less appealing.

But I try to be open minded. Training indoors is a bit of a bore, especially when your bike is pinned down and you are sitting atop of the machine that can hit 50 mph, but you are in your living room going nowhere. No wind, no view, and since I accidentally washed my iPod Shuffle, no tunes. So the video seemed an appealing alternative. I was also curious to see how cyclists train, other than spending hours upon hours on the road.

The video had a 55-minute routine, broken up with a series of strenuous bits then periods to recover. That part was fine. The workout was tough, but not impossible. And that part was also fine. The actual content, what appeared on the screen, well, that was a different story. The training session had a number of tri-athletes on their bikes that were attached to trainers, with a guy with a stop watch marching up and down the rows, marking times to start and stop a given exercise.

As the session went on, and the workout got more difficult, everyone got increasingly sweaty. And then it got worse. The camera zoomed in for these odd close-ups on individual’s faces, gritting their teeth, panting, grimacing, grunting and just dripping with sweat. And they were mostly guys, in tights, hunched over, glistening with sweat. And then I realized: Here I was, in my basement, alone, hunched over, wearing tights, sweating and breathing heavy, watching all of this in a darkened room.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a very good workout. But for the rest of the video I pushed thoughts of Robert Smigal’s cartoon “Ambiguously Gay Duo” and the oblivious Tobias from the brilliant but now cancelled “Arrested Development” sitcom to the back of my mind.

Now, if any one can recommend a tape where they have views of the Alps flying past you, or something along those lines that’s very, very manly and masculine and not at all of a bunch of sweaty guys writhing around in a room on stationary bicycles, let me know.

I am off to lift some weights, then watch football while drinking beer, maybe even watch a really violent movie, or something else mantasitc. See that Bears game? Helluva game, helluva game…

Back in the Saddle for 2007

I am gearing up for another 100 mile ride, but this year, the reason for doing so hits much closer to home for me.

It was just a month after finishing my first century (that’s a 100-mile bicycle ride) in June, my uncle Ed was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of leukemia. And within a matter of months, he was gone. A father of six, uncle, husband, Navy veteran, and all-around lion of a man was just swept away.

After completing the June ride, I wasn’t so sure I would sign up again. The fund raising and the training took a great deal of time and effort. Every weekend for five months straight was spent either preparing for, riding in or recovering from a bicycle ride.

But all that has changed. My resolve has been crystallized by grief.

So, I am back in the saddle again on the “Orange Lightning” for another 100 miles in June 2007, and I am asking for even more of you this time around.

I will have to see if my sense of humor rebounds in time. Ed's passing hit us all pretty hard. I am getting choked up just tapping this out right now.

It’s a great cause and Seventy-five percent of what we raise together will go to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.

Please make a generous donation (suggested donation is $100) to support my participation in Team In Training and help to find a cure.

For those that prefer to write a check, make it out to "The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society" and mail it to me at:

245 5th Street, Unit 1,
Jersey City, NJ 07302

I hope you'll visit my blog and my fund raising page often (http://www.active.com/donate/tntnonj/tntnonjEFlemin). Check back frequently to see my progress or read my blog. Please note that the fund raising progress bar hasn't been reset yet.

Thanks for riding with me once again. And for any of you joining me for the first time, I greatly appreciate your generosity.

Thanks

E