My second ride of the year - a little long
 

After a stressfull day, I decided to take a quick hourish ride before heading home. So I changed at the office and then drove to a safer riding location. I was pretty worn out by the time I got on the bike.

Immediately after I got started I could tell my legs just weren't as strong as Tuesday morning. My day's stress had drained the snap out of my legs. So I struggled to settled in for a tougher ride that I had expected. The second thing I noticed after a couple minutes was that my seat was lower than Wednesday, my knees were much higher than before and my quads weren't liking it. Between these two things I couldn't seem to get my cadence up over 70 (usually I'm upper 80's low 90's) not good but managable.

These two things made me want to turn back. But by focusing getting 30 minutes down the road I was able to keep going. About 20 minutes into the ride I turned right where I had turned left on Wednesday. It was a small bumpy road that headed up a valley.

I didn't know that just 1 mile later it would turn upward in a significant way. Plugged up the hill for a good 5-6 minutes and just ran out of mental strength to keep going. The hill won this round. But I'll be back another day for a second go at it, and that time I'll be stoping only when I get to the top however much further up the road I need to go. On a side note I didn't feel too bad about it since it was the first real climbing I had done in over 2 years.

So I headed back to where I had gone right instead of left and went down the road the other way. A couple more miles later I reached my 30 minute target, turned toward toward the fast departing dusk and raced the light back down the valley toward my car.

50 minutes and 11.1 miles after I started I was back at my car.Some where in the struggles of keeping going and the pain of pushing up my first reall climb, I had lost all my worries and stress - I had forgotten how a ride could do that. Despite less energy and a too-low seat I still managed to move faster than the last time I was out.

So that makes 22.2 miles for the year and only 1977.8 to go for the year.

Isn't amazing how that stress just rolls off you? There are days when I look out the window and think, 'I don't want to ride today', but the instant I get on the bike all that goes away, and I just enjoy.

East Hill

I would have stopped and adjusted the seat. That is just murder on the legs. You probably would have beat the hill. Better luck next time, I am sure you will get it.

I just fixed the seat post - I had to raise it 6+ inches I guess it was down more than just a little. My knees are sore tonight. I may need to not ride in the AM since I have my first 20+ mile ride on sunday with an old friend who helped me prep for and than ride a metric three summers ago.

I like your idea of riding out 30 min. then turning around, I will have to try that.

Good job. Every ride is a good ride no matter how bad the ride turns out. Just think, you could have been at work.