The 30 Km mark

Well managed to get out for another ride today. Thankfully the forcast for thunderstorms held up till later in the afternoon and was able to get a nearly sunny ride in.

I was cruising on my way out and was having such an enjoyable ride. Temperature was perfect, wind was decent, things were going well. I felt like I could have gone on forever but it was my plan to do only around 30km mark since it would only be my second time riding that long to-date.

Well lets just say I'm glad I didn't keep going on forever...in that direction...because I don't know what the radio guy was talking about barely any winds because when I turned around those "barely" winds seemed to be making themselves known. Though my plan was to really just take it easy on this ride so I wasn't overly concerned with my lower speeds on the way back.

I had averaged about 26.6km/hr on the way out and my speed on the way back amazingly only dropped me down to 23.3km/hr which really isn't much different then the averages I've been pulling lately. A sure cry from what I use to pull last year but once again I'm only in the beginning stages of getting back into training.

Even though the ride was great on the whole, unfortunately at km mark 28 my knee started to act up again. I slowed right down but it didn't deter. So once again I jumped off my bike and proceeded to do a number of stretches on the side of the road. It seemed to help but I could still tell I had to take it slow the last bit of the way home. I ended up doing 35 km in total (riding time was 1 hr 28min, actual time out was 1 hr 55 min). The last time I did around this much, it seemed that right around the 30km mark was when my knee starting bugging me that time. Here's praying I can get over this hump.

Well the plan tomorrow is to go riding with Hilena (finally) so hopefully all things go well there. I've missed getting to ride with her.

I took a few shots while biking today. I've noticed some of the lovely pictures others have taken and posted on their blog and thought I'd better get on gear on that as well. Enjoy :)

Back into the swing...er, I mean spin of things

Only ONE MORE MONTH TO GO till we officially start riding!!! Wow I can not believe how fast it is coming now and I am so excited to get going.

It's been awhile since I have written on my blog even though there have been many times that I have thought about it. Up until the last few weeks I was still having trouble with my knee and kept getting so frustrated and I really didn't want my blogs to keep being about that, so in the end I never wrote.

But this past week, I have started getting into a bit of a schedule and things have been going great so far (much to my relief). Though I have only been doing about 15-18km / day of riding, I have gone out every day of this week and my total is about 70km so far for the week and I still have the weekend to go. To some this may seem fairly small considering most of our days are going to be well over 100km long but I've really learned over the last few months how important it is to ease back into something. One analogy that I think about that I heard at a christian retreat last year was that we need to be like elastic bands. An elastic band needs to be constantly stretched so that when shot across a room it can go really far, otherwise if it just sits there it will become hard and brittle and fall apart. The message here is that we sometimes have to pull back in order to spring ahead. And man I have done my share of pulling back.

ART therapy has really helped heal my knee but so has my dependence on God and my constant prayers to him. As well as all of my family and friends who have been acting as prayer warriors for me (thank you). They have been a real encouragement to me in my down times. I like the one comment made to me by a relative that maybe the purpose for me learning to slow down in my riding is that I will get the chance to ride with some people I might not have had the chance to otherwise.

I look forward to finally getting to ride with the cyclists who right now I only know through e-mails. It's going to be so amazing. My excitement is definitely building.

I am also amazed that I now only have $2000 more to go to reach my goal of $10,000. I have been blown away by so many and by the support they have shown for myself and for the cause of this tour. Thank you to all of you.

Please continually keep all of those involved in the tour in your prayers as we are only still just in the beginning stages.

One month and counting :)