Not Really A Poll -- Funny Weekend

VarunaTT

So, we had a bike ride this weekend. 17 miles, no big deal, right?

WRONG.

I forgot that my little city is situated on a plateau around mountains. Granted, they're not the Rocky Mountains or anything, but they're still really damn big hills in a car; they're really effin' big damn hills on a bike. So, the first 5-6 miles out of town are great riding. Then the hills start.

I had cashed out completely and told DH that if we saw the SAG vehicle, i was getting on. Well, by the time we saw it again, we were on the very last hill back into the plateau of town. I thought, no, I"ll be fine, and let it go by. Then my whole being screamed, "WTF ARE YOU DOING!" I pulled over to the side and sat in the grass for a minute. DH caught up and asked if I was okay. I dramatically flung myself down in the grass, started laughing hysterically and bawling and said no.

We waited for about 10 minutes for me to pull myself back together. The last 5 miles back in town were great and I was trucking along happily again.

So, lesson learned: Varuna hates hills on her bicycle. 17 miles usually takes us about an hour to an hour and a half depending on breaks. This took us two and a half.

Also, on one hill I was walking up, I heard another rider behind me who was really breathing hard. When he came up alongside me, I asked if he was okay and told him I had an inhaler with me if he needed it. He said, "I just quit smoking a half mile back. Threw out the cigarettes and everything. I've lost 80 pounds so far and I'll be damned if I'm going to breathe like this anymore". Awesome.

6fsn

haha.  You flopped in your tutu too.  Tutu too is fun to say outloud

VarunaTT

Ha!  I forgot about that, 6.  That was b/c of rain and a sucky race though.  This one was me actually hitting my mental wall of how far I could push myself.

0Face

Hills suck for this very reason, they get in your head and tell you "you can't possibly do this", but you really can...it's more about...I will chew you up and spit you out...HILLL.

I've said this outloud before.  In front of other people.

kerbohl

I'm in the Netherlands right now - what they consider to be "mountains" are barely worthy of hill status.  But I miss the challenge of hills.  Instead of hills, the Dutch challenge themselves by going ridiculously long distances on their bikes.  Their biking paths though, cannot be rivaled!  They may be flat, but you can go anywhere in the country on a bike safely. 

VarunaTT

O-face, I did have a little song called, "We're going up the hill, going  up the hill, going up the hil, GONE!" 

Oh, another funny thing:  going up one hill, I heard more than one person say, "S*&t, Fvck!  I'm out of gears!"

I think I can do long distances, flat, much better than these hills.  As soon as we were back on flat ground, I was tooling right along, with my air and cadence right back. 

One nice thing, I did just resolve to start doing more hilly rides, rather than trying to avoid them. 

0Face

That was me and the wind, more than once on Saturday I said, "fvck you, wind!"

I mean, it was ruining my pace, and no wonder I was tuckered out later.

6fsn

I still have flashback to running "Dumb Hill" in high school cross country.  They called it that because the football players had to run it when they did something dumb.  That hill was horrid, but every year before the Rio Grande meet we had to run it over and over and over and over.  It was part of our race course so people hated us too.