Losers Weepers

I have become, as I explained to my sister this past week, a weeper.  I weep.  I weep at all kinds of things.  Somehow in my old age I have become even MORE of a crybaby than I was as a kid.  I cry at shows on TV and commercials.  I cry when I'm mad.  I cry when someone tells me a sad story.  And I certainly cried when I held my gorgeous new niece, when I spent some quality with my beautiful sister who is in just the third week of her journey as a mother, and again when I had to leave that sweet baby and her momma to return to my home in Wyoming.

It was an emotional and wonderful five days.  I am especially proud that in the middle of all the lovin', huggin' and kissin' on my niece (and all the weeping), I still got in two good rides in Milwaukee. 

But I have to confess, I did not do the ride I had planned on Tuesday.  The simple explanation is that time got away from me, and that in the end, I decided I would rather hold the baby and talk with my sister than get on the bike again.

It was to be my 20 mile ride, my longest ride to date.  It really bothered me that I didn't do it.  So, today I remedied the situation by doing a 25 mile ride from the Event Center out to the Reservoir and back again.  I'm not going to lie.  It was wonderful and terrible, exciting and agonizing, and really, really hard. 

It's amazing the things you think of when you're out riding for two hours.  There are no shoulders to speak of on State Highway 233, and at one point when the ditch was especially deep, I was thinking that if a truck forced me from the roadway, there would be no recovery.  A crash would be inevitable.  So then I was trying to decide, at that point would I want to steer into the sage brush to break the fall, or avoid it so as not to get scraped up by the branches?  I mean, who thinks things like that???

I read the book Wild by Cheryl Strayed, which as I have mentioned before was the first inspiration for this journey.  I remember that she wrote about how she thought she would have all this time to think and sort out her life and plan and work things out.  But in the end, every day as she hiked the Pacific Crest Trail she had to focus so intensely on the path in front of her so as not to stumble, trip or step on a snake that there was no time for anything other than walking and counting steps.

I can relate.  Wyoming roads are sufficiently torn up with the extremes in weather that my rides require me to carefully watch each stretch of road for cracks and potholes that might be a detriment to my thin tires.  That in itself can be exhausting.  But every once in a while, the asphalt is smooth for a length and I can look up and enjoy the rolling hills, endless sky and the Hams Fork River snaking through the countryside.  Those are the great moments.

So back to my weepy tendencies.  At mile 22 the final climb loomed before me at a moment when my butt bones were screaming, my left ankle was numb, my lower spine was aching and my stomach was rumbling.  This was the climb that the cows llamas witnessed two weeks ago.  I told myself that I had already accomplished this one.  It was in the bag.  But halfway up my frustration and exhaustion got the better of me and I started to cry.  I rode up that blasted hill with white knuckles, my shoulders hunched, my teeth gritted and tears streaming down my face. 

It was not my proudest moment on the bike.  But I still made it up the hill and back down to the Event Center where I claimed my first 25 mile ride.   The last thing I will want to do tomorrow is get back on the bike, but I have to make myself, even if just for a short ride.  Consistency. 

I probably learned several things on the ride, but the most daunting was this:  I am not ready for this trip.  Not by a long shot.  I couldn't have made it 40 miles today, let alone 50 or 75. 

3 months and 5 days to go -- there is much work to be done.

Thanks, blog.

PS  The pictures below are from today's ride.  The great thing about Wyoming is that you can see for miles and miles.  The bad thing is, you see the road ahead for miles and miles and realize just how far you still have to go!