Here we go again...

It's Friday, and I took the day off work so that Troy and I could do our 90-100 mile bike ride together for a change. So, here we go again with crazy weather. Will it ever be nice out again? I'm assuming we'll just wake up one day and it'll be 90 degrees with 98% humidity. Then we'll just go right into complaining about the heat.

It's been raining/storming the past few days, and rained off and on this morning. I wasn't feeling great..just tired, I suppose, but I went to teach spin class and then back home to do a little work and get ready to ride.

We met out at Shawnee Mission Park and headed out from there. Oh, did I mention the steady winds were 20-21 mph? I have no idea what the gusts were, but it certainly was windy out there! It was also a bit cooler than I planned for...sure was wishing I had those tights about now! We were about 14 miles in when we hit a nice, long flat stretch. We opted to ride this up and back a handful of times to add mileage. I really didn't want to loop back to the park having only covered 1/2 the distance. Somehow I knew it would be really tough to head out again. Anyway, we did that a few times and headed on further. The route itself is pretty nice. Rolling hills, some open countryside or nice neighborhoods...pretty scenery. At times, however, it was difficult to appreciate the scenery when struggling to keep your bike upright. Oh well, Ironman day could bring this kind of wind. Suck it up, right?

I think it was Desoto, KS, where we were looking for a gas station...best option was the Dollar General. Oh boy. This was interesting. I went in and bought a Pepsi (would've preferred Coke) and Snickers bar. This is magical stuff on really long rides. Mmmmm. I wish I could find words to describe the atmosphere there, and the store wasn't exactly tidy. I had to laugh when a store employee walked outside to gather a few carts and said, "whew, it stinks out here..." You're kidding, right? You don't think it smells in that store? And you don't think that cigarette you're about to suck down stinks? Too funny!

We continued riding...and the temps continued to drop and the wind continued to blow. I do remember on one stretch of country road, the sun came out and I started to sing, "Sun-shine on my shoulders makes me happy!..." It really did make me happy, unfortunately it didn't stay out for very long. We fought the wind, making our way back towards the park. We had to contend with a flat on Troy's rear tire. As it turns out, it was really a hole all the way through the tire. We tried sticking a piece of cardboard in there to hold it, but it ended up flatting again a few miles down the road. I think we stopped 2 more times to fill it up with CO2, hoping to make it back to the cars before we ran out of cartridges. We made it back, after 7pm. I was miserable. My back was killing me and I was just shaking from the cold. I don't think either of us said too much, except "good job" and "see ya later". I'm hoping for nice weather the day of our event!