Shifting cycling plans

I saw this on my ride yesterday.

I am a part-time caretaker for a disabled woman and have been for the last 3-1/2 years.  She has been in and out of hospital five times since I've been working for her, mostly due to intestinal issues (mostly due to diet issues, but I won't go down that story at the moment).  She is also a Life Master at the game of Bridge, and when she's feeling up to it, I take her to play at the local Bridge clubs 2-4 times per week.  Recently she had scheduled herself to play in a Bridge Regional down in San Diego at the end of March.  Now, this meant that I would be out of work for a couple days (unpaid days), so I thought that with a 4-day weekend that I would make the most of it by trying to push myself with four 50-mile days in a row - because if I wasn't going to be working, I would try to make good use of the time and try to push myself.  It would be a small taste of what it would be like to be on the road for a long trip averaging 50 miles a day, and it totaled 200 miles, which is approximately the mileage needed to get from the Santa Monica beaches to the border of California.  However, due to her latest hospitalization, the San Diego plans were scrapped.  The means I'm working, which is good, but my 4-day plans are also scrapped.

I'm currently far behind on my cycling goals for the year, but I know things will catch up in the upcoming months.

Ballona Creek with a friend

My friend Nessie from Hollywood and I decided to do a bike ride, but I wanted to take her on a new route, so I told her I would take her on the bike path that goes through Marina Del Rey and that we would go down to the Ballona Creek Bridge.

I ended up driving into Hollywood to pick her and her bike up and then back to my place where we pumped up her tires and then left about 10:30 A.M.  I'm not sure what time we got down there, but we each took lots of pics with our cameras and also some videos.

People on the bike path through the marina parking lots.

Ballona Creek Bridge.  Stopping grounds for lots of cyclists.

 She noticed how low the planes were flying, and I said that LAX was very close and that we could go down to the part of the bike path that is directly in front of the runways, and she wanted to do that, so off we went.  When we got down there, we look more photos and videos.  Part of the bike path was closed off, and that was the part in front of the runway.  There was another cyclist there, and he was sitting on a bench with his back turned to us as we talked and snapped pics for about 10 minutes.  Finally he got up and left and I asked him, "Were we disturbing you?"  "Yes," he responded matter-of-fact.  Oh well.  He doesn't own that spot.  Lots more private areas for contemplation.

We rode down to where the 105 Imperial Hwy dead ends/connects to the bike path, then turned around and went back.

We decided to take the entire Ballona Creek Bike Trail to it's eastern end since she hadn't gone that way before, and she got unnerved by a lot of the graffitti past Overland, but I didn't think anything of it (still don't).  We then wove through the neighborhoods, go back onto National, over to Regent, to Cattaragus, to Reynier, and then wiggling back through suburbia for 4.5 miles back to West Hollywood.  We rode about 32 miles total.

I motored her bike back into Hollywood.  And we were done.  It was late in the day.  Rewarded myself with a hamburger happy meal from McDs.

Wolfpack Hustle

It has not been the greatest month for cycling - only 140 miles.  I am becoming more and more aware of the Wolfpack Hustle.  On the one hand I hate the complete disregard for traffic and safety, but on the other hand I admire the speed and agility in traffic and often wish I could get up to a decent speed.  Now when I'm sprinting across an intersection, I tell myself, "wolfpack hustle, wolfpack hustle" to encourage myself, but still don't generally break 18 mph, and if I do, it's only long enough to get across the intersection.  So, I'm 110 miles short of my monthly goal, and that's not an easy target to make up, because now I start February and getting it up to speed.  I have all three rear panniers on the bike now, and I plan on traveling with all three as much as possible, although two are not loaded with anything.