Yesterday was the first day off that I'd had in a week and I was looking forward to getting a little rest and a good ride. I started the day with an early ride which wound up being a bit more than I had bargained for as the wind was a good 25+ mph and in my face for the first 29 miles. You might ask why I decided to ride when it was that windy. Waiting for a day without wind in South Dakota is like waiting for a day without rain in Seattle. Those days do occur, but you're better off just making your peace with the elements and riding anyway or you'll never go.
One thing that made it a bit worse was that I had never been on these roads before, so even though I was pretty strong in my resolve to follow the course I'd plotted, I kept having to wonder how much longer I would have to pound the pedals into the wind. Turns out it was 29 miles. I turned to head north, expecting the wind to be slightly at my back, but was disheartened to learn that it had shifted from the southwest to dead west and was now working a crosswind that made it very difficult for me to stay on the road. Thankfully, that stretch was only about 7 miles.
I knew that when I turned east that I'd be flying, but I didn't know whether my legs would let me enjoy it or if they'd scream in protest until I stopped. The road that I turned onto heads straight into town and has recently been resurfaced with asphalt which is a beautiful alternative to all of the brutal, choppy, limestone roads we have around here. With the wind fully at my back I was able to recover a bit over the first few miles. There was a road crew out working on resurfacing the shoulders of the highway and I had to stop for a pilot car in one spot. Once I got restarted, my legs felt pretty good. There were mile long stretches where I was between 30-32 mph without really working and I was able to take the few inclines (I refuse to call them hills) on that stretch of road at about 27-28 mph. Needless to say, the wind was strong.
I limped into home about 11:15 which gave me just enough time to shower, lay inert on the couch for about 20 minutes and then go to lunch with Hal and the rest of the "Elusive Moose" crew.
While I had been on my ride, someone had called from one of the churches that I applied at to see about setting up a phone interview. After luch I called back and had a nice chat with Brad and was able to set up a time for next week to gather their search committee around a speaker phone and do the next interview phase. If things continue to proceed, we'll go for a face to face interview sometime in the near future.
I also did some sermon prep for this weekend when we'll be going back to the Church of the Brethren in Sheldon, IA to lead the service. It will be the third time I've spoken there this year and gives us a good excuse to sneak out of town and spend a little time on the farm with my folks. I'm definitely looking forward to speaking, but need to finish writing my sermon so that I can practice a time or two before Sunday morning.
The kids are making a lot of noise in their room right now, so I suppose I'd best get them up and get ready to head to work. Another day...
1 comment:
Sounds like my riding experience in Oklahoma... Only there were no such days without the wind there... I'll never forget 2 particular days--the first, I'd set out with my music theory prof who rode regularly. We had to pedal like crazy against the wind to make about 8 mph; when we finally turned north, we were doing 26 mph without even pedaling!
The second, I set out on my own--against the wind, thinking I'd work hard on the way out and take it easy with the wind at my back... wind was too strong, so I turned around after a little bit--Joke was on me and the wind kept switching with me... I rode for half an hour, both out and back against the wind--felt like I'd been through the toughest 4 hour ride of my life!
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