Christmas morning. Most people are opening presents. RAI was opening a thirty-two minute indoor session. Heart rate at 150 average, maxing at 161. Honest effort — not the near-death experience of yesterday’s 191, but steady and real. The kind of workout where you’re working but you can still breathe through your nose. Four days in a row now. December 22nd,…

Christmas Eve. Thirty-three minutes. Average heart rate: 164. Max: 191. That max heart rate is not a typo. Whatever RAI was doing in that room, they were trying to leave their body. 191 is the kind of number where your chest reminds you it contains organs. The playlist was VTuber music and anime electronica — Kizuna Ai’s “Sky High,” somunia’s…

Second session of the day. Five hours after the first one, back at it. Thirty-four minutes this time — shorter, but heart rate at 138 average says they weren’t coasting. Two-a-days the week before Christmas. Brooks’ “Riot” opened the set, which tells you the energy RAI was chasing. Julian Calor’s “Space Flute” somewhere in the middle, which is exactly as…

Seventy minutes. The day before Christmas Eve. Heart rate averaging 151 with a max of 172 — this wasn’t going through the motions. This was work. An hour and ten minutes of indoor effort fueled by a playlist that knew the assignment. EDX’s “Neptune” hitting right when the lungs started arguing. RetroVision’s “Take Off” arriving exactly when the name suggests….

Two days before Christmas. Forty-one minutes indoors, no distance tracked. Just RAI and whatever workout they were grinding through that morning. Heart rate averaging 132 says this was moderate — steady work, not a sprint. The kind of session where you’re watching the clock but not dying. December in Florida doesn’t give you a weather excuse to skip, so you…

Lunch break ride. Same day, same distance as the morning — probably the same route in reverse. When your lunch hour is only thirty minutes and you need to move, three quarters of a mile is what fits. Heart rate says this was barely above sitting at a desk. That’s fine. The point wasn’t cardio. The point was sunlight and…

Not even a mile. Probably to the gas station or the corner store — the kind of ride where you don’t bother checking the tire pressure first. Five minutes on the bike. Heart rate barely cracked triple digits. This is what “getting out of the house” looks like when you don’t have a plan but you have legs and a…

Election Day 2019. Pedaled two miles to the polling place and two miles back. Pensacola in November is still warm enough to ride in shorts, cool enough to not hate it. There’s something about biking to vote that makes it feel more deliberate. You can’t just autopilot through a drive-through democracy. You show up sweaty and present. You lock your…

Second walk of the day. Evening this time, eight-thirty PM. Same half mile, but slower — forty-minute pace, heart rate barely at 96. This wasn’t exercise. This was standing outside and moving your feet because the evening was finally cool enough to want to be in it. Two walks in one October day. Morning and night. The distances are small…

Second walk of October 4th. Evening this time, 8:33 PM. Same half-mile distance, but slower — forty-minute miles, the pace of someone who is done with the day and moving through the last of it like honey. Heart rate 96 average. That’s barely above sitting. This walk was less exercise and more just… being outside when the temperature finally dropped…