A Bike Ride with a View...Part Deux!

Joy here...After the failed long run of Saturday, I was up for a bike ride on Sunday.  As with the other times I've ridden the "loop" of the National Park near my home (once with my friend towing her daughter and once on my own), I felt a bit of trepidation with Sunday's approaching ride.  However, I had convinced another friend to come along, and even though I woke up wishing that I could just stay in bed, I knew that I couldn't leave her standing all alone by the side of the road with her bike, stood up by me.  She's actually a friend through The Man since she did her Master's degree in the same department as  he did his doctorate, and then she ended up moving to the same city we did, and so I've gotten to know her a bit over the past few years.  But this was going to be our first bike ride together, and she is intimidatingly in shape, so I didn't want to flub up by not even showing up!  So I pulled myself and my courage out from underneath the covers, put on my cycling kit, headed out the door, and pedalled my little heart out to get to the meeting spot.  She and I then separated from The Man and his cycling buddies so that they could ride in the park at their own pace (read:  so that they could race each other up the hills and be as competitive as possible, not caring if the others die along the way).  Our pace was more reasonable.  We were able to chat for the whole time, aside from the steepest climbs when there was no talking, only heavy breathing; I was able to keep pace with her (mostly), so that's quite a feat for me.  I feel that not only was I out in a beautiful park early on a Sunday morning enjoying nature, and not only was I out on my bike having a good workout that didn't over-tax my pained knees, but I was also spending 2 solid hours getting to know a friend a little bit better, and as those cheezy MasterCard commercials point out, something like that is PRICELESS.

And, heck, the view's not half bad either!!!