Finding a Way; No Excuses

There's an old saying, "If you really want to do something, you will find a way. If you don't, you will find an excuse." Who among us can't admit this as truth? I know it's true for me.

I'm sure I've made my fair share of excuses in 2020, but one thing I've yet to say (at least since March 22nd) is "I can't ride a bike today." I've already gone into detail several times on this blog about why I've felt compelled to ride every day for 256 consecutive days - even if just for 5 minutes - so I feel there's no need to re-hash that discussion any more. What I'd like to start emphasizing a little more is that I've found a way to do this, but I haven't found it alone...

In an ironic happenstance, American Thanksgiving Day was day 250 of this journey. I like when round numbered milestones happen on important dates, but that's besides the point. This one presented a small challenge: we were going to be away from home visiting Rachel's sister and brother-in-law for the long weekend. Her sister graciously allowed me to borrow her bike so as not to break my streak:

An aside, Rachel's sister Jackie is a talented crafter and decorator who regularly writes about her creations on jackandbax.com. I highly recommend you check it out if you are into either of those subjects. One more aside, the website title is partially inspired by this lovable pooch named Baxter:

I enjoyed spending time with her too last weekend. Don't tell my cats. Anyway...I wasn't just able to keep riding, but I also had the opportunity to explore a new area, and new adventures are the best part of riding a bike, of course. Thanksgiving Day was less than stellar from a weather perspective, but I did manage to get in a solid 7+ miles on the Shaker Median Trail before heavier rains moved in:

It's a trail that weaves through the median of Shaker Boulevard in Shaker Heights (a suburb of Cleveland). As you can see above, the trail parallels the road in some spots before diverging in and out of several wooded areas, some of which are quite dense:

It's not a very lengthy trail either, which made it perfect for a morning ride before we converged on the kitchen to prepare dinner. It made me not feel so bad about stuffing my face a few hours later. 😄

The overcast weather held over into Friday, but of course, I still ventured out for a ride. I originally entertained some lofty goals:

The Lake-to-Lakes Trail in the map above from start to finish is about 8 miles, plus a mile from the house. If the weather had been more cooperative, and if I'd woken up earlier, I might have gone the whole length. In any case, I did get about halfway there, on terrain that was largely similar to the Shaker Median Trail:

I did make it far enough to cross over the border into Cleveland for about a mile before heading back:

I rounded out the weekend with a few shorter rides, one of them being to Cleveland Heights for the most random of destinations:

Why would I take a picture of a random doorway, you ask? Well, my Dad got me into a monthly satire publication called Funny Times, whose office happens to be a 3 mile bike ride from where we were staying:

Of course I happened upon this information and location on days when they were closed, so I couldn't actually stop in, but I still got a kick out of it. On another note, downtown Cleveland Heights seems to have a pretty crunchy vibe to it that I'd like us to explore more on a future visit:

I was also able to incorporate a little bit of history into my riding, as a historic site of a former Shaker residence happened to be about midway between the two trails I'd visited earlier in the weekend:

I know what you're thinking: did I spend any time with the family? Of course I did! We spent the majority of Thanksgiving Day cooking together, Friday was game night, and on Saturday, we decorated holiday cookies:

It was a great weekend that I would have enjoyed even if I hadn't made the effort to ride every day. I'm more than grateful I had the support of family to make it happen. You could say that biking was the icing on the cookies. Yikes what a terrible joke. Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to doing it again.

Our lives returned to normal on Monday, and as the calendar flipped to December yesterday, not much has changed, even after our first snow since March:

The lights on the bike are new, actually. I figured I needed to spice things up a bit in the spirit of the season.

I'm planning to finish out the year strong as I usually do, by riding every day. If you're unaware, I have a tradition that I started a few years ago called Bike Your Birth Month. The story goes like this:

Back in 2016, I was inspired by my friend Todd's tradition of riding his age in miles on his birthday, a tradition I was able to join in that year, and also in '17 and '18. This led me to attempt an annual birthday ride of my own starting in 2016 as well.

Even though that ride went off mostly without a hitch, it was difficult to plan around weather in late December. The next year, I decided instead to attempt to ride every day for the whole month, and my new favorite birthday tradition was born. I realize that riding every day sounds more difficult than riding just one long ride, but if you think about it in terms of daily routine, it's actually much easier to tackle 31 short rides as opposed to planning out one big ride.

I think it's an especially fitting tradition this year in the spirit of always finding a way, no matter what. Starting the month off with 2 days of snow seems quite typical of 2020. There are for sure going to be a few challenges thrown into this month, but I'm looking forward to it. Quick math tells me that if I'm able to finish it out, I'll reach 285 consecutive days of daily riding by New Year's. I've got ideas for a much lengthier "thank you" end of year blog entry for all of you who have helped me keep going this year. 

So hey, folks...only 29 days left in 2020! We're almost there. A calendar change doesn't mean that everything is going to automatically get better, but remember back in April, a lot of us weren't sure we'd ever make it this far. Let's keep finding a way.