Today was a scheduled four hour ride. And I was meeting my buddy, Pater, for some time in the saddle. We started out at 8:30am...oh, wait, he was 10 mins late. And I was, as stated above, not in the greatest of all moods (in his words, "a raging bitch"). We didn't really have a course planned, so we decided on a whim to go out to KY and up toward the airport, which meant lots of climbing...
And my legs were screaming on a run yesterday! I mean, Marc and I went out for this 6 mile run yesterday ay 11:45 (and let me just preface this with saying that it's been BLAZIN' hot here in the 'Nati...we had our 11th day of 90+ degrees for the month!! compared to the 7 we had all summer last year) and after a mile and the two miles and then three and again at 4, I stopped to cry because my legs HURT. SO. BAD. I didn't want to move!!
So, let's just say I didn't have great hopes for today's ride. And all this makes me uber grumpy. Pater made some comment about my chin strp on my helmet, after making a comment about standing and climbing and I'd already had it and went a little nuts, telling him to shut the fuck up...and rode on. I gathered my bearings and my sanity as we rode. And before I knew it, we were at the top of the hill, about 1:20 in...and stopped for more fluids.
We figured we had about an hour to roll around up top before heading back down toward the river. So, we went out and rolled. And baked. And sweat our asses off. We stopped after about an hour, far from where we'd come up...and I had ridden this area before, but not in about 2 years...and I ALWAYS get myself turned around out there, but when we stopped and Pater check GPS, I glanced, saw the river on the map to our left, told him we needed to go left. We went down, down, down..winding, and up and down, and up and down..and wound round and round. We stopped again, I checked my GPS...thought I knew where we were...and then, as we came to this construction section o the road where we were stopped for several minutes, realized we were headed toward Petersburg. WHERE THE FUCK IS PETERSBURG????
We were in dire need of fluids, so it didn't really matter. We rode, DOWN to get there. And found a store, where we spoke to the clerk and he let us know we were about 20 miles from where we wanted to be, and that it was pretty much all uphill. hahaha.
Did I mention that where I wanted to turn left, Pater had wanted to turn right? But I had won? Oops :)
We grabbed some snacks, some fluids, and a toilet. (notice the puddle under Pater's chair. That would be sweat...that is dripping from his shorts?)
I expected Pater to HATE me. Luckily, he's more patient than I. And he didn't get upset at me. We just rode the loooooong long way up the hill and into town. I mean, who doesn't need a little extra smileage? :)
Stay tuned for what's been happening the last few weeks, including races, wins, achy legs and lotsa lotsa training updates.
