Driving a car every day to work is a bit strange. It has been a couple years now since I have had to do that.
I kind of prided myself on doing my part to keep my carbon foot print small.
I had pondered public stransportation, but this side of the light rail route stops at every exit on the highway… 20 minute car ride, vs 10 min bike or 20 min walk to the train station, 30 minute ride, 5 minute bus ride (if i could figure that part out), or an 8 minute bike ride to the office. Wowo! Without the ability to really gain anything personally while doing that commute, i just couldn’t stomach it. (can’t blog if i have my bike – since you have to stay with you bike the whole time.) I could read…
With their recent decree that i should be there prior to 8am and ready to work, the train commute just wasn’t going to fit into my schedule. My gym doesn’t open till 5:30, so with an hour work out plus shower… not gonna happen!
But i did think i should do my part and i looked up the bike route home. There is a great set of trails all over denver and beyond.
Hubby and I did a dry run over the long weekend – 18 miles, 2 hours. I figured i could get that time down since some of it was getting lost and lolly gagging along. We don’t usually have any place to be when we ride our bikes, so my mind frame would have to change.
I decided i would try to bike at least 1 day week. Meaning train it to work, ride the 18 miles home – skipping the gym since that would be my workout for the day.
This past friday was the first attempt alone.
I did ask hubby to ride with me to the train station so i wouldn’t have to be alone on that part! He gladly accepted the challenge, since it meant he got to sleep in and not have to go to the gym! He was thrilled!
We arrived at the train station too late and too early. Meaning I had 15 minutes to wait for the next train (me being type A – i’m calculating the time that i am spending and thinking that i could be at work by the time the train arrives… sigh)
As we are waiting we are noticing a large amount of bikers arriving. This is a concern because there are only so many “spots” on the train. Bikes are only allowed at the beginning and end of each car and not by the driver and only 2 per site. I was at the very first train stop, so that is a plus, but still… I got on from one side of the train and so did another fella. A couple stops later another fella got on – so we were up to 3 bikes in 1 spot, i wasn’t sure what would happen, but luckily the RTD police were not around that morning to kick anyone off!
It was definitely a different feeling to ride with a laptop on your back -especially a 15 inch heavy bugger!
I didn’t dress the part to get to work since it was only 2 miles to union station and a little over a mile to work from the train stop.
After my work day was over i put on my cushy butt pants (which unfortunately since i lost so much weight are not fitting and causing more issues than they are solving – time to go shopping), my tank top to get some sun on my arms (it was 80 degrees ya know), sunblock, and headed on home.
Took me about an hour and 20 minutes, which i am still sure i can cut down – i still spent a bit of time lolly gagging, forgetting i had a purpose, and forgetting to up my gear range on the flat parts! It was a very nice ride and i managed to get on the bike path before most exercisers, it tends to get crowded in places.
I made it to the bar where hubby and some friends were by 5:38! Still time for happy hour! Only a mile from home.
I was definitely sweaty, and feel i did a bit of exercise!
We did a 3.2 mile loop and I didn’t read the description in my book as well as i should have and started to the right, which meant it was a giant stair climber… Reminded me of 
