My friend Jeannine is training for her 6th Ironman race. Yes, that's a full ironman. She is a little crazy but also a very sweet person and a great friend to me. I met her playing soccer and since then she has been a coach and an inspiration for my own athletic pursuits.
Last summer she agreed to take me on a few early morning bike rides. It was her "rest" day so she didn't have to go a specific distance or get her heart rate to a certain level. Thankfully she enjoyed the early morning rides as much as I did and asked if I wanted to do them again this summer. I am always nervous about riding my bike, especially on the roads with cars and othe bikers. But I know this is the best way to get me on my bike.
We went on our first bike ride last week.
With every ride I get a little bit better but since it has been more than a few months I wasn't sure how I would do. I always have to reacquaint myself with the gears, pushing and pulling trying to figure out if it would make it easier or more difficult to pedal. And as always I'm most anxious about unclipping my bike shoes. This is the most fearful thing. What if I can't unclip? Would I just fall over? Would it hurt? Would there be other people to see me? I have to push these worries out of my mind otherwise I wouldn't even get out of bed.
It was a cold morning for our first bike ride. Once we started riding it seemed like "riding a bike" which is good because that is exactly what I was doing. I love Jeannine because she is not only knowledgeable about road biking but she is so enjoyable to talk to. (As you can tell we aren't gasping for air while we ride).
We rode for about 35 minutes and then turned around. We were riding up this little hill and I was adjusting my gears trying to find the perfect one for the climb. I found it and then focused on pushing with my heels down and pulling up to get as much strength up that hill. Once I was comfortable with this I noticed to dead animals (I think they were oppossums but I didn't want to look) on the side of the road. I yelled to Jeannine something along the lines of "eww, watch out for those." I passed the first animal and was right next to the second animal when my pedals started spinning with no give. I knew I was going nowhere. I tried to unclip but failed. All I thought to myself was don't fall on the dead animal. Instead I made myself fall to the right and thankfully landed in a grassy, bushy area on a slight decline. Jeannine was a little ahead of me but saw that I had fallen. "Janelle, are you ok?" I almost wanted to laugh in return. "YES! I'm fine. I'm just SO glad I did not fall on that dead animal."
She came over to help me and I told her we needed to quickly get away. The last thing we needed was to smell a dead animal.
Yuck, Yuck, Yuck!
We have another bike ride scheduled for this week.
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