sad spiders

Thoughts on leaving the comfort of zone.

Today’s ride was a nice, gentle, three hour long and 60km trek. Headed away from home for an hour and a half before turning tail and heading along the same path back. The main goal was to make sure to stay well fuelled, to remember to get some sort of snack down the hatch every half hour and make sure the old digestive tract was happy enough with this arrangement. I’m encouraged to anonouce that indeed this was the case.

The temperature hovered around 3°C (who cares how many Fs, learn metric plz) for the duration, which prompted a switch to heavier lobster-gloves around the halfway mark, but then required switching back to the lightweight gloves most of the way back. It also made the granola bars and whatnot quite difficult to maow through, a little more crunchy than we’re used to.

Neat

Next Friday is a 135km ride from [redacted] to [redacted] for the Easter weekend. Along rail trails and gravel roads and minimal tarmac. Cars scare the hell out of me because they are x thousand-pound missiles with idiots at the helm. A pretty cynical view but not entirely inaccurate.

Did you realize that by definition half the people out there have IQs of less than a hundred?

It’s daunting, I am finding the whole thing fairly intimidating. I’ve never really spent more than four-and-a-half straight hours on a bike. So to add another half that again seems like a lot. With an anxious mind, this is a treasure-trove. Will my butt get numb and super uncomfortable? What if I bonk and feel like death at the x hour mark? What if my wrists and shoulders get super sore? What if I just can’t?

And since you’re not going to ask, I’ll answer anyways: I bring a small amount of emergency toilet papers.

I guess the answer is always just “you’ll deal with it”, which is true but also hard to accept. And this is how I am leaving my comfort zone. To trust that things will be fine, and if they aren’t, we’ll solve problems as they arise.

So.. ..let’s get on it with it.