Last weekend was jam-packed with physical activity. On Saturday, I rode my bike to the Police bicycle auction. Every few months, the local police department auctions off abandoned or seized property, including bicycles. I rode up to the courthouse right as the auction began. There were maybe 70 bikes up for auction and maybe 40 people gathered. I walked over to the pen where the bikes were being held and looked them over. Most of them were Walmart brand bikes, and mostly kids bikes. It was perplexing to see all those kids bikes, though. I couldn't figure how all these kid's bikes ended up in police custody, as if there was an outlaw band of kid criminals on bikes terrorizing the city.

There were a few road bikes up for sale, but they were unrecognizable brands, needing work, and appearing to be more than 20 years old.

The auctions started at $1 or $2. Most of the bikes sold for less than $20. There were a ton of kids wandering around excitedly, obviously brought by parents promising bikes. I watched two boys hanging on their father, their eyes bright with anxiety and longing as bike after bike went up for sale. Several men were buying large quantities of bikes; I asked one if he had a pawn shop or something. He said he just likes to fix bikes and re-sells them in his neighborhood.

For a while, I watched a tense couple continously being outbid. They were buying for their children, or so I imagined. A bike would come up on the auction block, starting at $2 or $5. The wife would nudge the husband, and he would raise his hand to bid. Then someone outbid him. The man kept bidding until another nudge from his wife stopped him and the bike was bought by someone else, or either the wife would give the signal to keep bidding and the husband would raise his hand a second after the auctioneer closed the sale. I was really rooting for them. Finally, they got two bikes, but not for a cheap price, relative to all the $10 sales being made, but I was glad they finally won some auctions.

The last bike sold was a Trek bike, sized for a teenager. There was a considerable flurry of activity for that one -- it sold after a bidding frenzy for $90.

Later, I rode around downtown. I realized after a while that I was singing to myself. The song was "Happy Trails" and even though I only know the refrain to that song I sang it for several miles, just happily peddaling along.

That afternoon I had a double dance class -- first samba reggae and then samba. It was taught by a visiting teacher I truly admire in an almost crazed fan way. On the bike ride over to the studio, my stomach was alive with butterflies, hoping that this teacher might notice the improvement in my dance technique, hoping that I might not insert my foot into my mouth as I am wont to do with people I admire. The class was a sweaty, polyrhthmic success, even though some of the jumping did bother my knee, and the teacher did greet me warmly before I scooted off to a safe corner where I could admire her from afar. I rode home on my bike, in some pretty hot 4 o'clock heat.

That night, I took a walk around the neighborhood with Rainey. She was feeling dizzy, and we kept having to sit down because she was afraid of fainting. I bussed it home from her house, but not before receiving my usual youngish-girl-sitting-at-a-bus-stop harrassment.

Sunday, I did my Couch to 5K run in the morning, met Rainey for a 12-mile bike ride and then went with Mac to a nearby state park for some river swimming and rock hunting for his new aquariam. By the time Sunday night rolled around, and after hauling my basket of laundry back and forth from the laundromat in the afternoon sun, I was dehydrated and feeling ill. Which is, of course, a lesson for me!

I am on Week 2 of the Couch to 5k training plan. Earlier this week I lay in bed looking out my windows, waiting for the first sign of a lightening sky to haul myself out of bed and into the task of changing clothes and finding shoes, etc… I was late for work, so will have to consider beginning my run in the dark, which worries me.

This week, the training plan has me running 90 seconds and walking 2 minutes for a total of 20 minutes. Sometimes my knee aches and other times it doesn’t. I'm only hoping that I will be strengthening my muscles with this exercise and that eventually the ache will fade.

I have likely set a personal record this week by riding my bike to work 4 days in a row. I like it best in the morning, when traffic is light, the air is cool and the world seems sleepy. I had to vary my route a few times due to packs of stray dogs, but I didn't mind. Also, I think some of the drivers on my route must be getting familiar with me, because lately lots of drivers have been staying in the lane when they pass me, rather than granting me wide berth, which means that the cars pass me less than a foot away. I can't say I like this very much.

Currently, I am trying the following things in my quest for a non-food obsessing way to become healthier: (1) I'm following the journal prompts in "The Solution", (2) I'm following the Couch to 5K training schedule, and (3) I'm fitting in as much as I can of the daily strength training routine prescribed in "8 Minutes in the Morning".

This weekend I've got another dance class, and hopefully some biking and running as well, though I'll wear my knee brace this time around and see how my muscles and bones feel.