5.24.2011 Ride: Congratulations, Jeff!

You may recall that I hosted a guest back in April who was bike riding from Germany to Placerville, CA, his hometown. After his stay,  I continued to follow Jeff's progress through his SPOT personal locator and cheered him on as he crossed from one state to another.  I am very happy to say that he made it home!  A really incredible adventure that took him through, to mention just a few places, France, Spain, across the Mediterranean Sea, through Morocco, on sailboat to the Caribbean, down to Ft. Lauderdale, where he made his way across the country with a stop in good ol' Fayetteville, AR.  He arrived home last Monday.

 

Congratulations, Jeff!

Woke up even earlier than yesterday but made it out on the bike later than yesterday.  I quickly realized that trying to keep up a pace of hopping on the bike right out of bed every morning was not going to work.  I miss my morning walks too much and I wanted to avoid the trap of my sole goal being to complete the miles.

The other deciding factor are my knees.  I tended to push a bit harder yesterday and the knees aren't too happy today.  I learned a couple of years ago that if I want to keep riding for the long haul, that I needed to go easy on them.  Yes, it would be nice sometimes to push as hard as I can.  Unable to do that, I ended up discovering the "softer" side of biking and enjoying the environment around me that much more.  I'm not sure if I would have ended up taking so many picture if it weren't for my knees leading me to an easier pace.  But, settling back into an easier bicycling pace doesn't mean I have given up the goal of attempting to hit 7,500 miles for the year. 

I took several shots of the horses by the tree.  Because of the distance and the low morning light, the shot is a bit hazy.  I ended up using this picture because it turned out to be one of those surprise scenes as I did not see the horse stretching when I took it.

 

The above photo could also have benefited fro more light.  This spider is only about 3-4mm and the grainy surface that it is on is actually the fender of a truck.

Today's Ride:  1hr 51mins.  20.53 miles.  59-67 degrees.  Miles YTD:  3,061.37