Pretty nice summer weather this weekend around these parts, highs around 90 Friday through Sunday but the humidity was fairly low — so while it was definitely warm it was not oppressive. At least your sweat has a chance to evaporate to cool your body.
I took advantage of this opportunity and got out on the bike both weekend days. My goal every summer is to ride 3-4 days per week for a total of about 3 hours — this year I’m adding stadium stairs 2x per week, plus a 20-30 minute walk 2-3x per week for some variety and a mental break from high exertion activity.
Sounds like a lot sweating and it is — but not doing it is even worse.
Most people think about only the physical and health benefits of exercise, but I find that my overall attitude and sense of “drive” are better with a consistent level of these kinds of activities, especially biking.
Experience has taught me that it’s about emotional mood management almost as much as physical health: something amazing goes on inside your body and brain with steady state aerobic activity, and it stays with you all day. Endorphins, increased oxygen in your blood, etc., it’s a miracle cure for a lot of ills.
When the weather gets really hot, say 90s and humid, everyone knows that the coolest time for biking and running is in the early morning, before 7am. However this involves way too much waking up at 4:30 and sweating by 5:15 — I’m more of a “wake up when I wake up and have some coffee and do some reading and writing” type of guy — but I can probably aim for 7:30 though on those really hot days.
Quick music notes: Late last week I discovered a good jazz/pop singer by the name of Laura Fygi — pronounced “fee-gee” — so over the weekend I listened to a lot of her music. The three albums that really caught my attention so far: “Introducing” her first album in 1991, “Change” from 2001, and “At Ronnie Scott’s” a live album from 2003. Her version of “Dream a Little Dream” is outstanding.