Humbled on the bike

Today was one of the days when I appreciate the best perk about my job: route development. I had a meeting in Tacoma this morning and then drove to Marymoor to meet one of the great volunteers on my committee, Rebecca, to ride the 45 mile Tour de Cure route. We started out about 11:00 a.m. and it was pretty cool, but sunny... we agreed that sunshine makes pretty much everything in the whole world better and happier. Rebecca is a really strong athlete (i.e. placed in Fat Salmon last summer) and has been on her bike a LOT in the last few months, so I sort of expected to be humbled...that expectation was quickly met. Fortunately, on the several occasions when she dropped me, I could at least keep her in sight. I'm going to choose to believe that me being able to stay within range was due to my cycling ability, but if I'm honest, I should probably admit it was because she is nice and because I knew the route so she needed me to keep up and tell her where we were going. I kept thinking that I really need to get my butt out on the bike on the ROAD more and not on the trainer so much...I can really tell that I need it. Anyway, I was humbled, but not demoralized, and had a great ride in the long overdue sun. It was really nice to ride with someone who made me push a little harder and also have some nice conversation along the way. We also actually did do some work I needed to do on the route related to the rest stops, etc.

Then I got to come home to the Shoebox which was toasty from the sun and smelled great because I'd left some really good barley/corn/tomato/Mexican seasoned stuff in the crockpot...ah, beer and burritos. A good day NOT in the office!

46.8 mile ride
3:03
Avg HR = 126
Avg pace: 15.3