Countdown to Triathlon – 187 Days, 26.71 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 58 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels:  it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.  ~Salvador Dali

Are the hills from my memory really as steep as I remember?

Can you believe it?  I was looking online for a picture of a steep hill and there are websites which tell you how to climb and descend steep hills on a bike and best techniques to use.  Maybe they weren't there in 2002, but they would sure be a help to me now. Hills have always been my bitter enemy while riding a bike.

I need some prayer.  Somehow, I have re-injured my right arm between my shoulder and elbow.  Right now I can almost not lift it and I dread going to bed because it hurt so badly last night no matter how I turned.  I think I'll sleep in the recliner tonight.  I certainly cannot lift weights, ride my bike or swim right now.  If I walk the dog I think I'll need a sling.  This is not a good thing for my training.  I have no idea what caused it.  Twenty years ago I had the same thing occur. 

The Journey - Installment Fifty-Eight

        I decided that I needed to head out towards Knight’s Ferry again, but wasn’t quite mentally prepared to make the 70 mile round trip yet.  Next Week!  I headed out past the cemetery and through the small town of Empire out into the country, crossed the main road to Oakdale and out into the farm and dairy country again.  I turned onto Smith Road where the woman stepped out of her house and gave me directions, then later that day, gave me ice for my knees.  The end of Smith Road was my original dilemma, the reason I needed someone to come out of their house and tell me which way to go.  So on the second trip out that way, I got to the end of Smith Road and turned right. Now remember that I had already made this trip a few days before but when I reached the end of Smith Road, the directions were to turn left; go about one quarter mile; then turn right and that road would take me north to Highway 108 which I crossed on foot, pushing my bike and then a short distance to Orange Blossom Road.  At that point I would be five miles from Knight’s Ferry.  This day, though, I was only going to go to Highway 108 which was just a little bit shorter trip than the last one.  Unfortunately, I forgot about the left turn, then right turn.   By turning right I ended up on Warnerville Road and nothing looked familiar.  That, in itself, was not unusual because much of the time my mind was not always concentrating on where I was.  My mind wanders a lot.  But, when I came to this really huge hill where the road dropped downward at a very steep angle, I realized that this was brand new territory.  I have no idea why I allowed the bike to go downhill.  I could not stop my downward progress after going over the top of the rise and I could not just keep depressing the brakes constantly or they would burn out.  I was going 36 mph at one point and that scared the dickens out of me.  All I could think of was that if I hit one of the pot holes in that very uncared for road, I would fly through the air and possibly break my neck.  The fastest that I had ever gone on the bike was about 22 mph going down a hill and that was scary enough. This was terrifying! I was totally out of control and had to pray for safety and that I could just keep my bike upright.  The road was full of pot holes and very bumpy.  Possibly the bumpy road slowed my progress, but 36 mph for me was like Luke Skywalker speeding at hyperspace speed.  That is of course an exaggeration, but that’s how it felt at the time.   

        I got to the bottom of the hill and thought perhaps I could catch a road which would head north and parallel the road I should have been on, and then cut over.  I didn’t want to have to turn around because I would have ridden a lot extra miles for nothing.  My plan to turn north and cut over never came to fruition.  I came to the end of Warnerville Road and it veered to the right (south) which was not at all what I had hoped for. There was no passage to the north unless I had been on an all terrain vehicle.   This was the second time that I forgotten the map and directions that Bob and I had put together on that Sunday when we made the trip by pickup to Knight’s Ferry. Can you say “Stupid”?  That was a big disappointment to find no road heading north.  So, I turned around and headed back to the hill I had just sped down at breakneck speed. Unfortunately, I could only ride about one quarter of the way up the hill and had to walk the bike the rest of the way because it was so steep. I had experienced in Hawaii going up a hill so slowly that I just fell over. Remember the turtle on its back and the Michelin Man?   I certainly didn’t want to do that again, especially out in the middle of nowhere where there was no one around to help me get my feet out of the clips and pull the bike off of me.  One of these days I want to go back to some of the places that I rode back in 2002 and see if they are really as bad as I thought at the time or as I now remember.

This is a little like what the countryside looked like.  The hill was similar to this but very straight with no curves and much steeper.