puttin' in the miles

after a great breakfast at einsein's, brian and i set out to put in some miles.  we rode with the massive wind, which always raises a flag in my mind.  you have to pay the piper sometime.

after a few miles, it was a very slight incline for nearly 20 miles.  that sort of blows my mind.  at the end of that rainbow, it was downhill rather fast, for about 5 straight miles.  the goal was to turn around there, head uphill for 20 minutes, rinse, spin, repeat.  great.  i have been wanting to climb like that for a long time.  brian and i had different goals.  i was going for some threshold climbing, he was going for strength efforts.  the climbing part was fun, because i could sweat.  by the end of my effort, i was dripping and happy, as i had busted out with something like 300 watts for the entire effort.  my second one was much more mellow, but turned out ok.  i will be very happy to see the graph of the efforts when i get home.

brian was waiting at the top for me after my second effort, a victim of his rickity knees.  i have complete sympathy for him, being a fellow rickity knee owner.  so we started back, buffeted by the massive headwinds.  we stopped at a quaint little dive gas station that charged us .35 to fill our water bottles and hit the road again, just after brian used the outside wall as a porta pottie.   

so we had 20 miles of rolling downhill.  not enough of a downhill to help us against the wicked crosswinds.  nothing froze toes has ever dished out could prepare me for this kind of vicious cross wind.  add to this the bite of the temperature, and the stings of the occasional minute long rain showers, and it was quite challenging.  with about 8 miles to go, i hit the wall.  i kept going, but brian clearly had left his knee problems on the hills and pulled me along a helluva lot more than i was pulling him.  70 miles, 4 hours, a bit of wind burn on the face.  as an aside, i love my orca.

happy to see the house, we dressed and bolted across the road for mexican.  fat and happy, we vegged in front of the tv for a fantastic viewing of super troopers.  an incredible dinner at a really great burger place, again leaving fat and happy.

still missing the family, still wondering if vacations should ever be taken without the important people you leave behind.