%&$#!ing Wind!

60 miles on Sunday -- to follow up the 43 miles on Saturday. Whew. What a weekend. I had to work on Sunday (gasp!), so I got up early to ride the first 30 miles on my own, join the group, and ride the second 30 miles. What I did not consider in my planning was that is was going to be 38 degrees and dark when I got up. Then, once the sun came up,
it started to warm a bit, but my word, it was windy. It gave me an opportunity to practice yelling and being mad -- not something I do a whole lot. The weather folks said the wind was blowing at 20 mph with 30-35 mph gusts. The sunrise was lovely over the river. I tried to take a picture of the little ducks having a swim, but they don't really look like much in the quasi-darkness.

I met up with the group half way through my ride and at the beginning of theirs -- some people gave me a hard time for being 'late' (we never leave on time anyway), and some told me I was a wimp for not staying to finish with them. I get a little tired of explaining myself, so I smiled and signed in, and saved up for cursing the wind.

On both Saturday and Sunday, each time we got to a check-in point, we drew a playing card, for a total of 5 cards each day. The idea was (other than making sure everyone checked in) that we would compile our cards, and the highest hand and lowest poker hand would win a prize.

I got to the end of Saturday and told someone how well I did -- I had an 8, 7, 6, 5, and a 3. I thought it was probably pretty good, especially if the 3 had been a 4 instead. They were different colors and suits, but still, they were all in a row (mostly). Saturday evening I got an email saying I won for having the lowest hand. I thought it was par for the course as far as my poker playing goes.

Sunday I didn't eat enough, and got to the rest stop a little angry, grumpy, uncomfortable, and downright annoyed. Why does everyone want to talk at the rest stops? Just leave me alone.
But then I had some oranges, a granola bar, and some pretzels, added some EmergenC to my water bottle, and suddenly stopped hating everyone. Good lesson.

So -- this week:
Monday: Spin
Tuesday: Spin
Wed: Spin (a.m.)
Thurs: Spin (a.m.)
Fri: Pilates
Sat: 43 miles
Sun: 60 miles

And -- not only that, I cooked myself some food. Doesn't that look good?

I had to - or my mom was going to ground me. A friend had a windfall of lots of dollars last week, and celebrated by buying some pre-ride sushi, and sharing with me. I think Saturday was the first day in a long time that I didn't wake up with a rumbly tummy. Plus, it was a nice sort of thing to think about when I was cursing the wind.

This next weekend's ride is in Napa -- a gorgeous ride in the Pope Valley with "one" monstrous hill. They say there's only one hill, but now I know they can't count. I'm one of several 'ride leaders' for Saturday's ride, so I think I better practice not yelling so much while I ride. And maybe smiling more. And some other things too.

But I'm still so tired. I can't seem to get enough sleep and food and down time to catch up with wherever I should be. Perhaps I should just get used to it and consider exhaustion my base line of operating. Or maybe I'll just go to bed.