So I got up, my first day of fifty-ness, and ate the requisite middle-age breakfast of champions: Oatmeal.
Boo! Porridge!
About an hour later, I realized that the oatmeal/porridge/middle-age breakfast of yuck was just not going to cut it. Particularly on this, my FIRST day of fifty-ness. I looked in the refrigerator: Pâté. Calling my middle-aged name, beckoning me to partake, with a few slices of really good cheese and nice bread. Yes - that is what the birthday doctor ordered, not some nasty gray mush in a bowl.
After my happy birthday brunch, I donned the cycling gear, packed a pack of clementines, bananas, and more cheese. I grabbed a couple of water bottles, some gloves and my helmet. I carried my bicycle from its winter storage place in the old living room, and headed outside.
Warm weather! And a tail wind! Yippee!
Off I went, down the road, hitting amazing speeds for my first time out this season. 23 mph! And fifty! I am invincible!!
This exuberant mood remained, oh... say, until I turned south, some 13 miles later. Daughter #2 met up with me here, and commented that the route I chose for my birthday ride was fraught "with headwinds every which way we face". Well...who knew?!!
By jove, she was right! That stupid wind just kept coming on, smack in my face, regardless of what direction the road took. And that stupid wind was building, even as we pedaled. Not only was that stupid wind getting stronger, but it started building in gusts, too. Those are not fun, and REALLY not fun when semi trucks pass.
We traveled twenty-six miles, having a ball in spite of the wind play. Mother/daughter chitchat, a sprint or two, some groaning (my part) about inclines, and an overall good ride out.
The ride back, Daughter #2's boyfriend came out to let me draft behind him. What a prince. Here's a guy who would probably have liked to have ridden, say 25 mph the entire way, and yet, he reined himself in to a lowly speed of 14 mph so the Fifty-ness Queen could draft. Thank you, Rich.
Twelve miles later, the daughter and her boyfriend dropped off to enjoy their own lives, and I had a remaining 13 miles to go, solo. Not a problem, I was thinking. I stopped thinking that after the first mile of 20 mph headwind. ALL BY MY LONESOME. I began to get "all funned out". If there had been a listening ear, it would have heard a fifty-year old whiney pot birthday girl. Small wonder the twenty-somethings dropped off when they did.
I kept at it, stopped once to answer a birthday call from my big brother Mike, and then back on the bike I went. I can't think of any nice adjective to describe that ride, the next 10 miles. It was not pleasant. I was in my lowest gear and going MAYBE 10 mph. Not pleasant all. I wanted to cry. But that would not have served any purpose, and the stupid stupid wind would have dried my tears in a heartbeat anyway.
Stupid wind.
Finally, FINALLY, I got to my last two miles. I had double-backed, and so I had a great tailwind, PLUS I had a minor decline. How did my birthday ride end?
LAST MILE: 26 miles per hour.
Yesssssssss............
Happy birthday to me: 50 miles, for 50 years.
2 comments:
I sure don't miss that Kansas wind!
It was pretty awful.
Post a Comment