cycling as therapy

I came home from Tacoma and the Daffodil Classic last weekend with pneumonia. Yup, bummer. I've been able to work but it has just drained me. I've been increasing my hydration and greatly increasing my sleep. I finally started feeling a bit better about Thursday but still have a lot of lung congestion.

It is a beautiful sunny day in northwest Oregon. Been told it extends east of the Cascades as well. I had planned on riding the Tour de Van Oeste Portlandia today.
It's a fun 47 mile ride in Portland's West Hills with nearly 7700 ft of climbing. Gives me a chance to show those racer boys the value of a triple crank!



I figured I could just pedal easy and be okay, but soon realized that there is no way to pedal easy up Brynwood (31%)

I think a nice easy bike ride would be beneficial, help loosen up all that "debris" in my lungs, it's just that my planned ride has nothing easy about it. So instead I'm going to hop on the bike and just go for a pedal. No set destination, no set avg pace, just pedal in the sunshine.

An update will follow later today.

Evening update:

I did indeed hop on the bike shortly after noon today. The sun was shining brightly and I figured an easy ride would do me good. I had toyed with riding a moderate paced ride with my social bike group today but felt.... well, felt lazy.
As it ended up it was probably a good thing. I thought that my only riding issues would be lack of O2 uptake when riding. I thought if I held around 50% normal capacity I'd be fine. Alas, anything above about 115 bpm on the heart rate caused stabbing pains in my lungs. Didn't take too much of that stuff to make me decide that a slower pace was called for. I assumed an upright position, hands on the aerobar forearm pads, and just pedaled like I was out for an ice cream ride. Despite the sunny day and moderate temperature I was chilled and couldn't ride hard enough to warm up. I stopped once to sit in a 3 sided "glass" bus shelter. Futzed with the adjustments of my new brakes while I used the breeze sheltered area with warm sun to warm up a bit.

Finally got back on the road and finished up.... a whopping 21 miles. Pretty flat and pretty darn slow too. :-O

..........road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total
Today........21..............0.............0..........0..........21
Jan.........474..............0............21..........7.........502
Feb.........530..............0.............0..........0.........530
March.......502..............0.............0..........0.........502
April.......321..............0.............0..........0.........321
YTD.......1837...............0............21..........7........1865