October 2 ride

[Geonz]

... I was assaulted by acorns... good thing I had a helmet! Windy and warm, so those suckers were just flying off the trees...
and oh, that peer pressure factor! I pulled up to this intersection that has 18 seconds of Walk Only... 99 bikes out of 100 go through. I *usually* don't (especially if there are witnesses), being a Righteous Vehicular Cyclists.
So I'm just perched there as this other cyclist pulls up, and stops... and he's making a left turn, and there's a truck which he does, indeed, dash off in front of as the light turns green for us. I almost left two seconds early (there's even a countdown on the walk button) just to give him "permission."
Vehicular cycling just maybe might be contagious...
And then in an episode of utter weirdness, I came into the tutoring center... and my first request was not math, not writing help... but... a native-Russian speaking student asking me to please read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" into her portable recorder so she' could make sure she got the English right.
What she could not know was just how aptly that tied into my yesterday... oy! (Then, the next 10 people were the usual requests...)

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Beautiful cool sunny/cloudy day. DH and I took off from work early to do a ride because yesterday sunday was rainy so we worked sunday instead.

We wanted to do about 20 miles. We wound up taking a route to a favorate organic food farm store up in the hills. But we chose the "hard hills" way to get there this time- had never tried it before. The route 7 way has a reputation as THE killer test for bikers around here.

We did make it in the end- but I had to walk up several parts. It was indeed KILLER, one killer hill after another! I had to stop several times to let my heart slow down and catch my breath. At one point I had to sit on the ground for a few minutes because I got weak and kind of "iffy". (yes, I had tons of water drinking all throughout, and had eaten a granola bar 30min before we started). DH was very patient and encouraging, and offered for us to turn back several times. No, I said, let's do it. I think it didn't help that it was the first day of my period. Also didn't help that our ride started immediately with a long steep hill, instead of a nice warmup to get going.

I did peddle quite a bit of the big hills in lowest gear though, and my DH kept saying he was very proud of me. He didn't seem to have many problems with it- what's up with that??
Anyway, we eventually got to the highpoint of the ride in terms of elevation (Thank GOD), and after that it was only delightful. We got to the store and I was suddenly ravenously hungry!! Had a craving for carbs and I ate a BIG plate of fish, brown rice and veggies, with a roll, lots of water again.
The sun was getting low and golden, so we got going back towards home- mostly blissful cold breezy downhills this time!
It was "only" 18 miles, but man what a workout. I'm glad even for the walking parts- it all builds more muscle for next time.

[Geonz]

The difference between giving 98% andgiving 102% isn't much effort - but it's the difference between looking like it's easy and always having something extra, and being pretty tuckered out.
Sometimes the real difference in fitness isn't that wide - but if I'm pushing past my threshold and the guy next to me is just under his, he looks happy and hale while I'm visiting bonkville.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Sometimes the real difference in fitness isn't that wide - but if I'm pushing past my threshold and the guy next to me is just under his, he looks happy and hale while I'm visiting bonkville.

I like that- thanks!

It's like in "On the Waterfront" when Marlon Brando says:
"I coulda' been a contender!- and all I got was a one way ticket to Bonkville!" (isn't that what he said?)...