The Calm Without a Storm

Waking today, I was looking forward to our bike ride. Rosemary had planned a 95km route without 'any' overly steep hills. The weather forecast predicted heavy showers though and I hadn't had enough sleep.! Eek.....right from the word go, I had nothing in my legs! I had to walk the first hill of any gradient and simply didn't have any capacity to dip into the red. 20km in and my mood was black.

The big hill of the day was much steeper than envisaged and I was nearly crying because I felt so tired trudging up it. "I can't manage another 75km in this state" I said to Rosemary..... She's planned a great route but I honestly believed that it was too much. "There's a 20km descent soon and you'll be fine once we get to that" she said. I was unconvinced, saying that on a scale of 1-10 with 0 being dead and 10 being fresh as a daisy, I was at 1.

Gahh....Rosemary was right again. Somehow I started to liven up and she ended up having to get me to slow down. I think the only difference was my mindset rather than level of fatigue. We were going to Wilf's again for a late lunch and I was in a hurry. The final climbs towards Staveley were really hard though and I was exhausted by the time we got there. After food, we still had a 12km ride, with quite a large climb to finish the day!

Although just under 100km, the day had felt like an epic ride. Somehow, with heavy showers falling around us, we had managed to avoid getting wet though, a complete miracle. The evening was spent very quietly, watching Antiques Roadshow and the Musketeers!