Watching out for me

 

      Outside with my new bike. Sunshine.  Thanks to Ed and Brad for taking me for a ride. I learned a lot and got some great tips. It was an encouraging ride. It was actually my first ride on my new bike outside. I've put hundreds of kms and tonnes of hours on the trainer. Partially convenience, weather and some fear has kept me indoors up until May. I'm not sure what I was thinking, was I gonna go straight from the trainer to the starting line in Los Angeles?  Hours on the trainer are good but definitely different than biking in the real world. Indoors if you're not having a great day you don't climb a big imaginary hill, you just make it smaller and easier.  Now outside is a different story. If you're going up a hill that hill continues until you're at the top. I'm trying to get a lot of kms in but not over train. Being new to cycling, this is definitely a learning curve. One I don't think I can afford to screw up too much 

    During April I really upped my time and kms on the bike. By the end of April I got pretty sick and ended up not cycling for a week. At first I was really disappointed and down on myself not sure how far backwards I would end up with my training. Turns out God knew my body needed some recovery time. 

      I'm trying to follow a training plan I got off the sea to sea website.  I mixed that plan with another plan I found.  The combination of these two seems to be working better. 

      Living in the Holland Marsh we've always had lots of cyclists around. With the nice quiet flat roads its perfect for cycling.   There are hills all around us so it makes for a good training ground.  Also every day is different, there's always wind. I went 29 kms one day this week and it seemed like 28 kms was against the wind or uphill. Good workout though. 

    This Saturday I got up early to head out on a longer ride. Pumped up my tires, got my water and snacks and away I went.  6 degrees outside, cold.  I'm bundled up, it's overcast and just stopped raining. Ten minutes in and I'm questioning my decision to purchase gloves with no fingers. I'm on a route that takes me north and seems to be uphill the whole way. I stopped at Felicia and Johan's place for some more water and moral support. I've driven to their house hundreds of times in a truck but never on a bike.  I'm starting to understand the saying uphill both ways.  So I end up on a road that I thought wouldn't be that busy. Turns out that Saturday mornings this road is packed with people going to the dump. Trucks and trailers filled with junk whizzing by me at 80 kms plus an hour. Nails, glass, garbage all over the road. I was biking and thought this would be a good time for prayer, I mean really pray. God I know you're in control - I think that's an easy prayer when things are going well. So I'm just over a hill and I hear what I thought was a car and then a big truck behind me. I look ahead and see what's coming from the other direction. There's a car 300 metres.  The lanes are tight with no extra room for bikes. The car passes me from behind and then a huge tractor/ sprayer thing passes me. The tires on this thing are 8 feet feet tall. It speeds past and cuts in front of me to miss the car coming from the other direction. Turns out this sprayer is a lane and a half wide. Angels riding with me? I think so. Two minutes earlier as I just got to the top of an earlier hill I took a drink from my water bottle and thought I slipped it back in the holder but I missed. It fell onto the road. I had to stop and pick it up. Then I got a phone call from my son and we talked for half a minute. That delay put me at the right place I was, just missing the tractor. God definitely was watching over me and protecting me.  There's not a lot of extra room on this bike, but there's always room for some angels. Front and back.