One K Day

Today was one windy day...I could easily have titled this entry as D-Day as in Dalhart day. Within the first mile I was heading into headwinds of 20+ mph and really wondering if I wanted to ride that badly. I had chosen my M jersey (thanks Al) and inspired by the famous fight song decided 'what the hell', the sun is out, it's a beautiful day, I can handle this. And of course, the good thing about the wind is that it is constant: doing a round trip from home means that at some point you will find that it becomes a tailwind and that can be delightful. So after fighting head and cross winds for the first ten miles I finally made the critical right turn and had several miles of pure tailwind - I looked down at the Garmin at one point and was cruising at 24 - that is a good wind. So I finally found my way into the Sourlands with a bit of uphill but lots of trees and they cut the wind to something manageable. As I was headed back home, maybe 15 miles out I came out of a section of trees and saw that sun seemed to have disappeared. A huge bank of very black clouds was being borne by this wind directly into the path I had to take. At this point I had the wind in my favor again and so decided to run for it - actually I didn't have a lot of choice, my wife was having lunch with a friend and chances of a rescue were pretty slim. So I kicked it up a bit and decided this was going to be one of those training rides where you just go like hell for as long as you can. I dropped into a high gear and took off watching these clouds and seeing trees bending at angles I would not have thought possible. Every time I looked down at the computer I was doing 21/23 mph, much faster than my usual pace but there was also a certain excitement trying to outdo the wind and outrace the coming rain. Bottom line: I started feeling a few drops the last couple of miles but I made into my driveway and garage ahead of the rain and with my heartbeat still under the limit I've programmed into the Garmin. And I must say it was one really fun and exciting run. And a quick P.S....I hit my first one thousand miles today, hurray. Last year with all the training for XC I was actually at 1800 at this date but given our weather and the fact that this year I'm just doing this for fun I'm pretty content with hitting 1K this early in May...