I live in West Hollywood but work just south of Beverly Hills near Pico/Robertson. My work is about 3 miles each way. On the way, it's downhill, but it's pretty flat regardless, and on the way home it is entirely uphill, but also pretty flat. It is not a challenging ride whatsoever.
Today I did not go directly home because I had to make a detour east to the Laurel Pet Hospital and pick up some Lactated Ringers fluid for my cat. It's an electrolite solution that get's injected sub-q daily and helps flush out his very elderly kidneys (he's nearing 21). So I took Willoughby to Edinburgh and then went north the two blocks to the vet hospital. From Willoughby to Santa Monica Blvd, the incline got a little steeper, and by the time I got to the vet, my heart was pounding. I could literally feel my chest pounding.
I don't stand and pedal. I can't seem to do it on my bike without feeling totally out of balance, so I sit all the time - up hills, on the flats, down hills.... I sit. The glutes work while being sat on no matter how hard the work. I wish I could stand, but I've tried it and it's just not natural. I lose all torque, and part of me is nervous a pedal will snap off and send me into a terrible crash. Ugh. Stupid, I know. Perhaps if I had a trainer at home I could practice that in safety. One of these days i'll get a trainer. I really want one anyhow for those days when I just don't want to go out, and now that I've shipped out all the movie costumes that had been in boxes on my living room floor, I can actually see the floor and have room for a trainer! When the old cat passes on, I'll also be getting rid of the sofa he calls home, and them wowsa... tons of floor space!
So... backtracking a bit, I got to work where I take care of a disabled woman M-F in the afternoons. Sometimes her husband is there, sometimes not as he is a professional Bridge teacher, probably the best in Los Angeles. Anyhow, I noticed his car in the garage and I thought to myself sort of ... ugh. He'll be underfoot all day. Well, turns out he either had food poisoning or that stomach virus because he had been vomiting all night, and the proof was in the towels on the bathroom floor, in the sink and splattered around the sink. So, I cleaned all that up. The wife was still asleep. I cleaned up what there was to clean and was twiddling my thumbs within an hour because the wife still wasn't up, so I took an hour and rode my bike down a few blocks to Jack in the Box for something to eat, then came back. The wife was just starting to get up, and I made her breakfast about 3:30-4:00 pm. I had to change the bedsheets because she didn't want his stomach flu or whatever anywhere near her, even though he didn't vomit in bed, so I had to rip all that up.
I left about 4:30 and that's when I went to the vet. Got home at 5:30ish.
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