I haven’t written here about cycling in a long time, but that’s not because I haven’t been riding. I have ridden over 2,100 miles so far this year, which doesn’t strike me as bad for a year in which I gave birth! I began riding in the middle of March, and have ridden more or less steadily since then, with some breaks for travel and busyness. I’d say my fitness is decent as far as recreational riding goes, but I’m far from being ready to race. I’m not sure if I will race next year or not. I want to keep riding through the fall and winter, but I don’t know if I will have time or energy to do the kind of riding that’s necessary to prepare for racing. I will just wait and see, and in the meantime, I’m enjoying getting out on my bike in the cooler fall weather.
The hard thing, though, is that I am doing much more riding by myself than I used to. A few times during the summer Hobgoblin and I hired a babysitter so we could go riding together, but that babysitter is no longer in the area, and now that summer’s over we are busier and need babysitters for other reasons. So he and I usually take turns riding while the other watches the baby, which is fine, but sometimes without someone to ride with, I lose my motivation. I can ride with other friends occasionally, but that’s sometimes hard to arrange. So I ride by myself and think about how lucky I am to be able to get out at all, what with a new baby and a full-time job.
Cormac is doing great, although even now as I type, I’m listening to him play upstairs in his crib when he should be taking a nap. Some days he is a good napper, but many days he is not, and he will frequently take 20-30 minutes to fall asleep, then sleep for 20-30 minutes, and then be ready to play again for another couple hours. I think 20-minute naps are marvelous for myself, but would prefer that my baby would sleep a little longer.
But I won’t complain about his napping, because he is a fantastic sleeper at night. We plop him in bed between 6:30 and 7:00 in the evening, and he sleeps until 5:30 or 6:00 most mornings. That’s a long stretch of time. He is an easy baby to take care of; he is happy and cheerful and fun to play with. He is very close to crawling, at which point we will spend our days chasing him around the house. It should be fun! Here’s a recent photo:
Of Books and Bicycles 
Do you ever take Cormac with you on bike rides? I am really impressed with your mileage! And I totally understand about how hard it is to ride alone. I have the same problem, it just isn’t as much fun.
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Not yet, although we will. He seems a little bit young yet. But by next summer, we will have him in some sort of seat or trailer or something. And fortunately, I now have plans to ride with a friend this weekend — yay!
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The Bears are thrilled to see another picture of ‘their’ baby and definitely think you should put up with the twenty minute naps if it means you’re getting ten and a half hour minimum nights. In fact I know a lot of mums who would like to know where you can order a baby that does that:)
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I know — I am very lucky! My baby is pretty amazing 🙂 I was thinking that I hadn’t posted a baby picture recently and needed to rectify that….
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He looks as if he’s about to ask you, “how much biking?!” Such a cute picture!
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