There’s a fine line between wisdom and zeal. I ran 2 miles today. Slow, but a run nonetheless. It actually felt pretty good on the knees, this is where wisdom comes in. After being over zealous in September and making the decision to try a 6-mile run too soon after an injury which left me without running for three months I may have learned my lesson.

The desire to run longer and farther was there this morning, but the discipline of the last few months had me stop at two-miles and go for a bike ride to complete my workout.

Speaking of the bike(s), I’m learning more about the care-and-feeding of a bike and had to replace the bottom bracket bearing set on Goose after 1900 miles or so. Previously, I had not worked this extensively on a bicycle so it was new territory in parts and tools. The Internet is always helpful when learning new things so after learning about it I ordered the parts and tools. Things came together pretty well and I was able to get Goose back in action.

While Goose was down and out waiting for repair I purchased a cheap bike from Walmart I named Kermit (see Goose and Kermit below). It’s a long story, but I would have to agree with the majority of the Internet concerning the “Walmart bike” as they really don’t know how to assemble them well. Perhaps I’ll do a separate post about the department store bike experience.

Kermit helped bridge the gap while Goose was down and now I’m thankful to have a backup bike when necessary. You may be thinking, isn’t that expensive to have two bikes? Kermit was $110 and Goose was $170. My shoe expense was about $125 a quarter when I was running every day, so I didn’t see this as an outlandish expense. Perhaps I do rationalize and say these costs are quite a bit cheaper than my copay at the physicians office was starting to accumulate before I decided to take control of my health, so there are other ways to think about it. 🙂

So I’m back to riding Goose when the roads are decent and I’m full of gratitude to ride and run this much in December as it’s been a mild month here in the Midwest.