That which doesn't kill me....

I’m not sure if I’m stronger, and I’m not convinced that this ride didn’t kill me. I don’t remember feeling as tired as I am now after a ride!


Saturdays are long training ride days so I sent a plea to my cycling friends to join me for a long ride, because we all know misery loves company. Cosette and Molly were in and the plan was for a 50 miler from Sedalia to Palmer Lake and back. Cosette wanted to start in Palmer Lake and go north and back so we didn’t have to drive as far and I explained to her why that’s not the preferred way to do the ride. We did it backwards anyway and about ½ way in the return route, she had no doubts about why you start in Sedalia and when we finished she was offering conciliatory beers and profuse apologies. Read on and you’ll know why.

Being Colorado, it was still chilly at the start (55 degrees) so we donned our fashionable arm warmers and windbreakers and headed out of Palmer Lake turned North on Highway 105 which turns into Highway 85.

The highway follows the Front Range and you have views of the mountains the whole way, rolling green hills from all the spring rain and farms and ranches and houses bigger than mine. Waay bigger than mine (not that I’m envious). We were going much too fast to enjoy the view though, and were having a blast riding with a light wind at our backs while the elevation was mostly descending. Top speed was 45 miles an hour and we covered the 25 miles to Sedalia in an hour and 15 minutes. As I was cruising along I reminded myself that an easy ride headed this direction means a thigh burner on the way back. That wasn’t enough to make us turn around though and we kept cruising. We stopped at a little market for a potty break and since you had to buy something to earn access to the toilet, Molly got a Resee’s flavored coffee and I got a chocolate milk. A small price to pay to not have to pee in the trees. A 15 minute break and off we went, retracing our route back south.

It wasn’t so bad the first 5 miles… and then the wind picked up and it was hard. And the wind picked up some more as we kept climbing and it was harder. On the way back I was going so slow that I had plenty of time to view those houses that are way bigger than mine and fantasize about my intended lottery win and which house I would buy. Maybe the one on 50 acres? The price was JUST REDUCED! I took some breaks to capture interesting scenes along the way distracting me from the pain and the thoughts about how far I still had to go.

You know how when you want time to pass quickly and you watch the clock and it crawls? Only 5 minutes have passed??? It was the same experience on the ride back. 39.4 miles. Glance at the odometer hours later --- 40.7 miles? You gotta be kidding me. Hours later – 43.3 miles. I’m never gonna get there.. It’s not going to be any easier if I bombard my mind with negative thoughts. I’m going to get there when I get there. I can hear Steve’s voice in my head (this one happened to be his angel voice) “OK. Hunker down, relax and just ride. Don’t fight it. Don’t waste your energy trying to hammer through it.” It really does work when you clear the negative chatter from your brain and just quiet your mind.

What took just over an hour to go out took over 3 hours to come back. Thanks Cosette for the training aid of doing the route in reverse! I’m sure it made me stronger.