Teeth Chattering Bike Ride

Joy here...After finishing 21kms of running on Saturday, when Sunday morning rolled around and the alarm went off at 5am so that we could get out to the park for the long bike ride, I felt like cowering under the covers and cancelling my plans.  In fact, the other women who I sometimes ride with had all bailed out on me for various reasons, so I knew that I'd be doing the loop of the park all by myself.  What better reason to roll back over and go to sleep than knowing that no one is there to hold you accountable???  But I would know.  And there's still a small part of me that's able to hold myself accountable every now and then, and luckily that responsible side of my persona had the upper hand, and so I got myself out of bed, kitted up, and ready to ride.

Once out the door, we could see that the skies were overcast and the clouds were blowing across the open expanse above us rather quickly; grey and white clouds rolled across the morning sky, and the wind began to blow.  My fingers and toes were getting cold, but I told myself that once I started pedalling up those steep climbs, I would warm up.

Wrong.

In fact, it got colder and colder the higher I went.  On one of the climbs it even started to rain, and it took all my willpower to keep going.  Every inch of me was screaming to turn around and go back home, but I somehow kept my pedals turning over.  When I reached the top where the lookout point is (and these two previous posts - one and two - show the view from up above), I wasn't able to sit back and enjoy the lovely vistas, because IT WAS TOO DAMN COLD!  I swear the wind was howling up there, and I could barely feel my fingers enough to unwrap my sandwich and refuel myself before tackling the long ride back to the bottom and then home again.  As I began the descent, my teeth were chattering so much that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to concentrate around the quick bends in the road as I just tore down the hills as fast as I could.  I figured that the quicker I made it home, the sooner I would be able to warm up, but the wind whistling by my ears and blowing against my cycling vest made ominous sounds.

So I just tried to grit those chattering teeth and push the bike homeward as quickly as possible.  In the end, even though I felt cold and tired the whole time, it took me less time to do the entire loop this week than it did last week!  I couldn't believe it when I got home, thawed off, and checked my watch.  Maybe cold is all the motivation I need...which might just be a good thing with autumn right around the corner.

Over and out,
Joy


**Note:  the image is borrowed from http://illustrationforkids.blogspot.com/2008/08/paula-on-sports.html.