22,880 Steps

My legs hurt.

I did a lot of walking yesterday.

But before I tell you about that.  I have to tell you about my new obsession with tracking my movement.  About a month ago, it was time to upgrade my phone.  (It's a thing I do every two years.  That's how I roll.)  It just so happens that the time that my upgrade is available every 2 years happens to coincide with the time that Apple releases a new iPhone.  So naturally, I got the iPhone 6.  One of the fancy new features it has is Health Book which shows me handy dandy graphs of all sorts of things about my health.  It looks like this:

As you can see, I haven't taken very many steps today (Sunday).  It turns out that driving to church, walking around the building a little bit, driving home and walking around a little bit at home doesn't amount to lots of walking.  Luckily, I really needed an ice cream sandwich out of the basement freezer, so I have at least climbed one flight today.  But you can also see that yesterday was an epic day with 22,880 steps and 10.43 miles.

I didn't intend for it to be a record breaking day.  But here's the thing.  On Saturday mornings, I always watch a movie on the treadmill.  I crank up the incline so that it's like I'm hiking.  I'm trying to train for longer hikes so that I can do some more hardcore backpacking.  (I know my phone thinks I only climbed one flight yesterday, but the treadmill said I climbed a good 2000 feet or so.)

In October, my treadmill movies are always scary movies because I can DVR them all throughout the month, and consume them at my leisure.  I particularly love that I can get R rated movies that are edited.  Apparently I'm the only person on the planet who enjoys scary movies but doesn't particularly enjoy foul language, gore and explicit sex.

Yesterday's treadmill feature was A Nightmare on Elm Street.  I walked a good 5 miles while Freddy haunted the dreams of various children, but then I needed to watch some News because I've recently become obsessed with the status of the ebola virus in the United States.

I had to stop the treadmill to take a picture of this.  I was amused that it said, "Doctor Who survived ebola."  If anyone can survive ebola, it's a time lord.

So I watched the news for a bit, and ended up walking an additional 1.4 miles, bringing my total to 6.4 miles on the treadmill.  I thought my exercise was done for the day, but I was wrong.

That evening, we drove the truck to Pleasant Grove to pick up some things for my sister.  On the way back, the truck ran out of gas.  Apparently, the gas mileage has severely dropped recently.  Since the gas gauge doesn't work, I've always filled it up when it gets to 300 miles on the trip meter.  That has always worked for me.  I've gone as far as 320 miles without it being a problem.  The meter was at 293 miles and it was bone dry.  We were a little over a mile from the nearest gas station, so  I got to do some more exercise as  I walked my little self to the station, and walked back with a gallon of gas.

I know this happened before.  I've learned my lesson.  I will now fill it up when it hits 250 miles.  I could get the gas gauge fixed, but that seems like it might be taking things a little too far.

The good news is that we filled up the truck with gas, and everyone arrived home safely.  Robyn was slightly cranky that she had to wait in the truck for me to walk a few miles when it was clearly dinner time, but other than having to eat a late dinner we all survived.

But most importantly, my phone was super impressed with how many steps I took yesterday.  And isn't impressing our devices what life is about?

The Time I Wore a Diaper to the Grocery Store

Okay, I'm going to admit up front that the title of this post is totally sensationalism.  I didn't actually wear a diaper to the grocery store.  It just felt like it.

So here's the thing.  I've recently become more of a biker.  I've been biking to work.  I've been biking on the weekends.  It's really fun, and I really enjoy it.  But, there's one little drawback to all that biking.  I've written before about how I have no bum.  Well, it turns out that bumless people have a problem of having zero padding in the seat area.  This means that prolonged biking can become quite painful in the hind end region.

Well, as a biker, I've greatly utilized the local bike shop.  The salesman always laughs at my jokes, which means his sense of humor is impeccable, so I assume he is wise in other areas as well.  When I asked him what to do about my tender hind end, he suggested padded shorts.

What a brilliant idea!

So I purchased some ridiculously expensive shorts.  From the outside they look pretty normal.

But on the inside is where the magic happens.

That brightly colored yellow pad runs all through the inside and gives a nice gentle cushion to all the parts that get pushed up against the bike seat and become much too uncomfortable.

While riding a bike, it's like sitting on a cloud, or a light feathery pillow.

But the moment you get off a bike, it feels like you're wearing a diaper.  It's basically the most awkward clothing you could possibly wear for anything other than riding a bike.  I'm not really sure if other people can tell that there's extra padding in there.  But, it really doesn't matter because regardless of what others see, I feel deep down in my soul that I'm wearing a diaper.

So, basically, I try to avoid wearing these shorts at all costs, unless I am on a bike at that exact moment.

Which brings me to the story about why I had to wear them to a grocery store.

I mentioned earlier that I've been riding my bike to work.  When I do this, I put it in the back of my truck and drive to the American Fork train station.  This allows me to get past a couple miles of heavily trafficked roads where there are many bloodthirsty drivers who yearn to kill innocent bikers.  From that point on, the rest of my commute to work is through farmlands and next to Utah Lake.  It's a beautiful ride.

Well, apparently, due to my frequent bike commutes I've been driving my truck more than I realized.  The gas gauge on my truck doesn't actually work, so I have to be somewhat aware of how much it's been driven.  (Which I apparently wasn't in the story you're about to read.)

On Saturday, I had planned to take Robyn on a scenic ride out next to the lake.  I'd picked a trail on the east side that we hadn't done yet.  It was going to be really fun.  We put our bikes in the back of the truck and started heading out there.

I've never been driving when a vehicle has run out of gas before.  It turns out it's a really surreal experience.  The car doesn't just instantly die.  What happened to the truck was that it seemed like the gas pedal just quit working.  I pulled over and tried to rev it but it wouldn't do anything.  Then after about 30 seconds of idling, it finally died.  I wasn't completely sure it was out of gas, but that was my best theory.  I really hoped that was the problem and not something else.

So there we were, on a random highway in Saratoga Springs.  The only way to test the out of gas theory was to go get some gas.  We googled the nearest gas station and it was about 3 miles away.  Luckily, we had our bikes.  Our scenic ride by the lake was replaced with an un-scenic ride up a busy highway to a gas station.

And that's when I had to take my diaper laden self into a grocery store.  The gas station was outside Smith's.  But they didn't sell the little gas cans at the pump.  I had to waddle my padded self inside the store.  No one gave me any strange looks or anything.  But I felt like they should.  I mean, couldn't they tell how thick the padding on my bum was?

It seemed like it took hours to find a gas can.  I made the purchase and the checkout lady said, "I hope everything works out okay."  I smiled and she gestured at the gas can, "That thing speaks to me.  I can tell you're not having a great day."  At least it wasn't my padded bum speaking to her.

But that's when the real adventure began.  I got to make the return ride with a gallon of gas in my hand.  Although, I feel I did it pretty well.

That's what thumbs are for.

We made it safely back to the truck.  I put my gallon of gas into the tank.  Crisis averted.  The truck was just out of gas.  I think I would have cried if it turned out to be a different problem.  I promptly drove to a gas station to fill it up the rest of the way.  The tank took 18 gallons after the 1 gallon I had put in.  I've never put 18 gallons in it before.  I didn't think it held that much.  Who knew?

Even though we'd only ridden 6 miles, we determined our adventure was over for the day.  I came back home and read a book.  I like books.  Books don't run out of gas.