It was slated to be the best hump day in the history of my recovery. Here was the plan:
1) Drop Camryn off at school.
2) Do my weekly reading with Brynn's class at her school.
3) Ride my bike from Brynn's school to an adjacent neighborhood with a paved path around a lovely lake.
4) See what this knee will allow me to do.
The sun was in and out that morning, and temps were between 55 and 60 degrees. Absolutely perfect weather for this plan I've had in my head for weeks. This was the first chance I had to attempt it since its conception, and I even took a rain check on plans to ride bikes with a dear friend just so I could try it (and have just a few minutes of blissful solitude before Camryn got out of school and resumed her quest to ask a million questions in the 13 hours she's awake).
My short bike ride to the lake was perfect. I passed some gardeners making this beautiful house on a corner even more beautiful with some annuals and some mulch, and I even told them so when we made eye contact as I cruised by. I parked my bike behind a bench, and walked for a few minutes to start out. A teenager was coming my way on his bike, and I did the friendly head nod/smile combo as if to say, "Hey, we're both out here enjoying this weather."
I picked up the pace to a slow jog, starting out on the grass beside the path so as not to completely shock my system with pounding the pavement. It was a moot point, because shortly thereafter, my IT band started talking to me. If my IT band were a person, I imagine it would be much like Dennis the Menace, just trying to cause trouble:
Instead of stopping immediately this time, I kept going, switching over to the pavement to see if there was any change. Nope, no change, but I continued on anyway. Since I wasn't having the stellar experience I was hoping for, I stopped to take a picture of a family of geese since I needed a picture to fit the category "nature" for an Instagram photo contest. I scanned across the lake to see how far I still had to go, but quickly convinced myself it didn't matter. Screw the pain, I'm just going to run. I ditched the 9:xx pace and picked up a little speed. I managed to get down under an 8 min/mile, and my cardiovascular system was showing major signs of a 7+ week layoff from running. Unfortunately, so was my bladder control. Yeah, I went there.
I just wanted to complete one loop around the lake, and then I'd figure out if I'd walk another time around or get back on my bike and explore a few more nearby neighborhoods. I spotted the bench where I parked my bike and just wanted to get to it. As I got closer, I found myself squinting as I looked at the bench. Were my eyes deceiving me? Was my bike...gone?!?!?
SERIOUSLY?!?!? Someone steals a beach cruiser from a nice neighborhood that's surrounded by other nice neighborhoods at 10 o'clock on a flippin' Wednesday morning?!?!? Fighting back tears, I walked back toward the school where my car was parked, searching in the wooded area along the way for any trace of my beloved beach cruiser. I passed by the gardeners again, and asked them if they had seen anyone with a blue beach cruiser. Like a punch to the gut, they said they just saw a kid put it in the back of a pick up truck. When I asked what the kid looked like, the gardener described, to a tee, the kid I had seen earlier on a bike by the lake. How he managed to get his own bike (was that bike even his own?!) and mine away from the lake is a mystery, but I wanted to hunt that punk down and take my bike back.
I filed a police report, just in case it pops up on craigslist or in a pawn shop somewhere, and I felt like I was reporting a kidnapping. My baby was taken from me, and she was probably scared. I wanted to hang fliers like this one:
You hear that? Straight to hell! This poster would have worked too:
I'd send Large Marge after that little twit. Talk about getting kicked while you're down. My sanity is hanging by a thread without being able to just take off and run, and now I can't even ride my bike. So not only do I now have runner envy, but I have bike envy, too. I feel like I've lost my puppy, and any minute now, my phone will ring and one of Virginia Beach's finest will be on the other end telling me they've found my bike. A girl can dream, right?
But through my mopeyness, Camryn has yet again proven to be the sweet comedic relief I've needed. When I told her someone stole my bike, her tiny little freckled face got all scrunched up and she yelled, "That's not nice!!!" And this morning, when I asked her what she wanted to do today, she said she wanted to go to a store. I asked her what we needed to get, and instead of her usual reply of ice cream and candy, she said, "I want you to get a new bike because that bad guy stole yours and now you're sad." That girl.
She and her sister are supposed to be reminding their dad that Mother's Day is this weekend. Maybe she can suggest a gift with two wheels, a kickstand, and a sweet little cupholder.
No comments:
Post a Comment