Sunday, May 13, 2007

Bicycle, bicyle goes so fast


Yesterday, I went for my first bike ride of the year. I had really missed it, and now I know why those weekends spent running felt so painful - I enjoyed this so much more (well, until I realized that setting out on a 30 mile bike ride when I no longer had a biker's butt was not a good idea). I rode 30 miles on the Katy trail. I was actually really worried that I wouldn't be able to do this ride yesterday. As some of you may know, Missouri is dealing with a wee bit of flooding right now. There was talk that the Missouri might be covering highway 94 at Klondike and that would have meant it was covering the trail too. As you can see, the river and tributaries were pretty high. Luckily, the river crested at lower levels than they were predicting and everything I care about stayed dry. The news media keeps comparing this flood to the Flood of '93, but its nothing like it. Even though the river is nearly as high, many of the houses that were in the flood zone back then have been moved,and those last couple feet make a huge difference in damage.


Yesterday was perfect weather on the trail. When I started out it was about 70 degrees and sunny. There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day, and after the days of thunderstorms that was pretty great. For those of you who think of my home state as fly over territory (which I won't argue with), I will say that Missouri is beautiful. It has some of the most gorgeous landscapes in the country. Its not like Kansas - we have hills as well as plains (some people pretend the Ozark hills are mountains but come on people, if you have seen real mountains, you know better). The Katy is an old railroad line so its pretty flat, and it runs along the Missouri river basin so the land around it is pretty flat too. But, there are rolling hills in the distance. In fact, some of the hills are up close and personal and you can see where the railroad cut through the landscape to form the trail.

Around mile 17 or so, this guy passed me in opposite direction and wondered how far I was riding that day. When I told him that I planned to do 30 that day and that I figured that was enough for my first ride of the year, he told me I was gonna be sore tomorrow. I said probably not, other than my butt hurting. Without blinking, he replied that was probably because I was "so athletic." Despite the fact that I ran a half marathon last month and set out for a 30 mile bike ride without a second thought yesterday, I still don't see or think of myself as athletic. If I signed up for match.com again (ummm...unlikely to happen anytime soon btw), I would certainly not check the "athletic and fit" box for body type (I think of myself as "about average"). Anyway, that was such a great compliment for me partially because it was just such an off hand comment for that guy. To him, I look athletic - how cool is that!? Maybe I just have a distorted body image (I think this is very possible). Anyway, that was a big excitement for the day.

I also experienced the biking bonk for the first time. By the time I stopped for
lunch, I had ridden about 20 miles on a half a bagel and some tomatoes. I was starving, I didn't realize how hungry I was until I got off the bike and walked up the hill to order my favorite biking lunch (beer and the best darn grouper sandwich north of Florida). By the time I got to the bar to place my order, I was practically shaking and almost felt like I was going to throw up. I desperately needed to eat. I drank about half the beer and a bottle of water while waiting for my oh so wonderful sandwich. I don't know if the sandwich is really that good, or if I am always that hungry when I eat it. It doesn't matter - either way it is a sandwich that always tastes perfect to me and gives me exactly what I need. I also like the motto of the brewery in question.

By the time I got back to my car, my butt was hurting like no other. I'm beginning to worry about whether it will be able to handle the 70 mile weekend I have planned for the first weekend in June. I'm sure it will be fine as long as I get some miles in between now and then. I was going to ride today, but I decided that my butt needed an extra day off. Tomorrow I have my second Zumba session. I loved the first class, and I figure it can only get better as I figure out what exactly I'm supposed to be doing. I'm getting less than 10 miles in a week running these days, and honestly that feels pretty good. I'm not getting out of shape, but I have time for these other things that I love doing.

Weight: 157.5 (yesterday morning)

P.S. - In case you didn't realize I finally took my camera with me so I could record a little bit of my life to share with you all. Hope you enjoy the pictures:-)

1 comment:

EEWill said...

Those are gorgeous photos!!! So green!