Timbit*5=Donut

I feel as though the summer is quickly coming to an end and I have a limited number of days on which the weather will be warm and the sky bright enough to cycle. I'm trying to make the most of every weekend we have left, and since we'll be out of town beginning Saturday, I was looking forward to a long and enjoyable ride with Zdenek and his bro this past weekend.

I find that my body gets the best deal by cycling on Saturday and saving my long run for Sunday. For some reason, it's much easier to run, rather than cycle, on tired legs. Perhaps it's because I'm a better adapted (and therefore more efficient) runner, but more likely it's because I'm rather immune to the inconveniences and pains of running (e.g., it is difficult), while I can always find things to complain about in cycling: too much traffic; my butt hurts; my hands hurt; too many pedestrians; my helmet is too tight; my glasses fog up; my toes hurt; my pedals are too stiff; my knee hurts; my gears are shifting funny; my butt hurts (again). The slightest bit of fatigue is bound to make a cycle seem like much more of a chore than simply zoning out and plodding along, no matter how bad the weather or how tired my body.

New York City has been hot, muggy, and afflicted with impromptu thunderstorms over the past several days. On Friday, we carefully studied the weather.com forecast and determined that we had a better chance of clear skies on Sunday than Saturday. We thus reversed our usual order of events and put in a solid 11 mile run under Saturday's sticky conditions. It never did rain that day. On Sunday (after I made the classic set-the-alarm-for-pm-instead-of-am mistake) we woke up slightly too late for any ride in Central Park that would be unimpeded by hundreds of wandering tourists and meandering pedicabs, but because a risk of thundershowers made a ride to and from Nyack a bit of gamble, we opted to take our chances in the Park. My brother-in-law bailed. While we managed 36 miles at a respectable pace, the road was a bit of a zoo by that hour and my legs were far too tired from the previous day's run to fully enjoy the ride. After Zdenek dropped me for the umpteenth time and I pedaled as hard as I could to catch him, he turned to me and said, "You must be really tired today." I'll try to pretend that he meant that in a sympathetic way. (And to add insult to injury, the promised thunderstorms failed to materialize.)

After so many raw deals, Zdenek and I finally visited a New York City Tim Hortons location on Sunday afternoon. But from the logo on the storefront, to the inside decor, to the selection of food and beverages, it simply wasn't what we were accustomed to. Nevertheless, we purchased one pound of coffee, which, much to my surprise and annoyance, cost over a dollar more than up north. Because we had walked almost 20 blocks to get there, I rewarded us with the purchase of two Timbits. They were dry and flavourless (what is going on here?). On the upside, we didn't have to pay anything for them, and the kind man behind the counter even threw in two more, no charge. As he explained, the cash registers have "no buttons for one Timbit, two Timbits, three Timbits...,"nor any quantity of Timbits less than ten (but if you buy five, they charge you for a donut). So as far as I can estimate, the best deal I got this weekend was worth $0.68.