Biking - week 3

This was a hard biking week for me.  Sort of.  I feel like I learned and experienced some important things. 


Monday was ok.  I felt a little sluggish after the weekend and a couple of late nights.  But I rode down a spot that I had only walked down before and didn't crash and that felt really good!


Tuesday was pretty good.  We biked on the bike path towards Troy and decided to go farther than we had before.  I felt like I conquered one hill but now had a new much harder hill to deal with.  Kind of discouraging.  But we stopped at the church on our way back for the Mid-Week Relief Society Meeting which was being held in the morning this month.  It was really good!  We learned about the best way to start our days. 
     1. Positive "I am" statements and gratitude.
     2. Meditate
     3. Pray - less of the "Help, I'm in trouble" and more open, two-way communication
     4. Move your body! (got that one down)
     5. Get into the Scriptures
It was a very short, but very good lesson.  I was really glad we stopped!


Wednesday was really HARD!  And I'm still not completely sure why.  We were back to mountain biking.  My muscles really hurt going up the gravel road just to get to the trail so I was shaky starting out on the trail and that scared me and it only got worse from there.  I walked my bike more on Wed. than I ever have before.  I could not get over it!  I did ride over the hump by the gate at the end, which is still a pretty new thing for me to be able to do, so I felt like I finished ok but had a really tough time otherwise.  I was pretty scared to go again!


Thursday was good.  Back on the bike path we rode farther than we ever had and the really big hill was still hard for me, but not as hard as it had been on Tuesday.   We biked about 13 miles in just over an hour.  It was encouraging!


Friday was better.  I was nervous!  I had already decided that there were a couple of places I just wasn't going to worry about.  I was going to try them later.  We got to the mountain and headed up the road.  Cecily is able to just power up the gravel road to the trail.  Her legs are strong!  But Kim(Cecily's sister-in-law who mountain bikes with us) and I decided to mostly just walk up the road.  Kim had walked up Monday, then biked up Wednesday and decided she like walking up better.  I started out on the trail with fresher legs so I wasn't shaky, which in turn gave me more confidence and I was able to bike like I had been at the end of last week.  Then I came to the scary part.  The part that I had already decided to skip.  And I didn't stress over it!  I just walked on past, then got back on my bike.  When I came to other parts just past that spot that make me kind of nervous, I was able to take a deep breath and pedal on!  Breathing became really important to me.  Deep relaxing breathing, almost like I do during contractions.  When I would start to get shaky or nervous, I would stop, breath, relax and then be able to go on.  It helped me a ton!!!  Cecily and Kim were both very encouraging and patient and were really able to help me feel like it was ok for me to go at my own pace.  I am not a person that does well under pressure, and I did not feel pressure from them to hurry up or try things I wasn't ready to try.  And I didn't have a hard time keeping up with them!  They are such great ladies!!!


Cecily and I are thinking about entering the Tour de Lentil at the end of August.  There are three route options:150K, 100K, and 50K.  This year we would definitely go for the 50K which is about 30 miles.  But, we have our sites on longer rides in the future!  We'll see.