5.23.2011 Ride: Upping the Ante?

A curious thing about goals.  I've talked about the challenges lately of keeping spirits up during this middle part of the journey.  What I find that is making achieving the end result more appealing during this time, is creating an even greater goal.  When I first started in the beginning of the year and I was doing calculations for how many miles I might achieve, 5,000 came up as a very realistic number.  That would certainly have been a new one year high for me by about 1,500 miles.  As I kept riding, 6,000 miles, then 7,200 or 7,500 became a real possibility.  In fact, at my current pace I would hit 7,500 miles.  That translates into 20.55 miles a day.
As I rode today, I thought about this new pace and wondered how realistic it would be, or even if I wanted that to be my new goal as opposed to just fulfilling the 60 minute daily minimum.  It certainly changed my outlook as I rode,  thinking more of completing the ride and getting in the miles and less about taking pictures.  I don't think I would be very happy with that mindset in the long run as it started to feel more about getting there rather than enjoying the journey. 

But I think a balance can be found.  The idea of the new goal certainly invigorated me and motivated me to crawl out of bed at 5:15 to get out by 5:45 on the bike.  And, I did ride with new energy.  It just may be what I need for a bit to keep the journey fresh.

Again humidity speaks.  With the temperature at 61 degrees when I started off and dressing accordingly for past 61 degree days, I quickly became very warm.  I did ride on Hwy 45 for a bit as the early morning traffic was very light.  But I decided that by 6:15 it was best to get off that road. 

The light fog gave way to a clear sky and it was hard to believe that thunderstorms were in the forecast for later in the day.  However, near the end of the ride, a rather ominous grey blanket of a cloud was slowly creeping across the sky.  The cloud had a very eerie feel to it, as if it were alive and imported in from a sci-fi film.

Spotting this contrail a bit further on in the ride seemed to add to the Us versus Them experience; our brave and noble attempt to send a spacecraft into the heart of the invasive cloud hoping to save the world and maybe even the solar system.

On my last lap, the cloud had turned our mighty star into just a a mere dim light.

It wasn't until I got back home that I heard about the devastation and deaths by the tornado in Joplin and my imagined scenario became very real for the folks up there.  My thoughts are definitely with them today.

Today's Ride:  1hr 52mins.  22.07 miles.  61-67 degrees.  Miles YTD:  3,040.84