The Sackrider Blog

Ok, sorry for not posting in the last few days, however we had no internet connection, no cell phone service, and even no TV for one of the hotels – which wasn’t a bad thing.

Day 10: Slept In

So, after my ordeal with the hail storm and Texas farm hands, I had a hard time getting to sleep early enough to get started at my usual 5-6am start time. So I slept in. I ‘thought’ it would be no big deal because I had a short 50 plus mile day. I got up around 8am and took Zander for a morning walk. We saw all the damage from the hail storm and Zander found a swing set on the camp ground we were staying at (we had a ‘cabin’ which was advertised as a luxury suite but turned out to be a cramped hotel room with a concrete floor shower.) Zander enjoyed the swing and I enjoyed the time I spent with him. Later I helped Stephanie pack the car and sent her up to the McDonald Observatory for the 11am tour as I finally hit the road. The elevation on the map showed a mostly downhill day. It seemed like a lot of rolling hills, a lot of climbing, and a few fun downhills. I actually enjoy the rolling hills more than the flat days, but it slows me down a bit.

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It felt like I couldn’t get on the road for anything the other day. I had a flat tire Wednesday morning that I didn’t discover until after I had suited up for a bike ride, packed my work gear into my pannier, and headed out to the garage. I drove the car to work that morning but not until after I fixed the flat. That night I was determined to ride the bike for at least a few miles. I grabbed Zander, put him in the baby bike stroller and hit the road. After I got a couple of miles from the house – the wind picked up – going in the ‘other’ direction and the bike stroller acted like a big parachute. I only got about 7 miles like that.

So I brought the bike in the house, put it on the bike trainer and rode another 5 miles. The next morning I rode the entire 19 miles to work AND I took the long way home for another 21 miles. Now that’s more like it! After this week on the cruise (whaaaoooo!!!!) I only have three weekends left before my 1000 mile bike ride. One of those weekends, my Columbus friends are headed to Vegas which is only a five hour drive — I really want to head that way but that would take another weekend out of my training time. We’ll see — in either case, I have a lot of riding to do between now and May 26th.

I rode for 26 miles on Friday and then for 30 on Saturday. I intended to ride on Sunday but with church and family functions I never got out there. Monday I wasn’t feeling well and I was actually going to call off work, but I had just too much to get done before my vacation starting this weekend, so I worked from home: translation – no bike ride. Yesterday I had to go to another building several miles from my normal work place, so riding the bike was out of the question. So, although I had intended to ride my bike for four days this week with at least 20 miles a day – I haven’t been on the bike yet. So today was going to be different. I went to bed early last night, I got up on time to ride the entire way to work without having to catch the bus, I got dressed and headed to the garage to get on the bike… WAIT FOR IT…. That’s right – I have a flat tire. Arrgghhhh!!!!

If I’m going to ride 1000 miles in less than six weeks, I need all the training I can get!