We had to do some things in the morning and by the time all of that was done I was not feeling very motivated to go ride and I was tired. I checked in with a couple of people to see if they were riding, but they all were busy. Having someone to go ride with is always easier to get motivated for than a solo ride. I am not saying that I don't like solo rides, but if I am not motivated and there is someone waiting for me, I just feel more excited about getting out. The wife was great and was not going to let me sit on the couch all day. I really wanted to, but it was not going to happen.
I figured I would go out for an easier spin on the road bike just to get some miles in. That thought started to fade shortly after I left the house. For some reason my route of choice was in the direction of the hills. The reasoning of "if it was going to be easy, I might as well work some" seemed to make a lot of sense at the time. So off I was heading for some good climbs.
I had a few sections were I was moving along at a good pace and others that were slower. I was just happy to be out on the bike and enjoying the sun. I struggled some on the first couple of hills, but I did make it up. I was ok with this as I was still going for an "easy" ride. A screaming downhill had me getting set up for a tough hill that I have not seen much this year. It was very hard on me, but I did manage to find my way to the top.
The next section had some more climbs, but they didn't seem as bad. I even thought it was a good idea to roll out to the overlook section at Patoka Lake, you know, since it was just an easy ride. I sat there a little bit and ate some Honey Stinger chews and took in the view of the lake. Not a bad place to hang out. I even thought I needed to take the wife up there for a picnic sometime.
The ride back to the main road was not too hard, but I was still starting to feel some of the climbs in the legs. I continued around the loop climbing a few more hills. At the next intersection I was not looking forward to the ride back in to Dubois and the hills that would follow. I thought it might be easier to go farther down the road and cut over to Celestine. Well I ended up taking the wrong turn and the shorter hills that I thought I was going to climb were about another country block over. The hill on the route I did take was plenty big. This hill really hurt and I could only inch my way up it, but started feeling a little better afterward.
I decided to cut my route a little short and head back the short way to Schnelville. The short way has a few more climbs than I remembered, but at least it was shorter. All was going well and I was glad to be getting closer to home. That was all up until I hit the intersection to head back and it had a road closed sign. Humm, I didn't know that was going to be there. I took a chance and went around thinking that surely I could get around the work area. Well that was not the case. It was a bridge out and I really didn't feel like getting my feet wet trying to walk across.
I then turned around and headed back to the sign. At this point I was not sure what way to turn. I was not looking forward to riding the highway the one direction, so I decided to turn the other direction. I really dreaded this decision. It was a couple of climbs and then I was at St. Anthony. From there I was actually heading home, but still had a ways to go. This direction had two of the biggest hills I had to climb of the day. I didn't think they got much bigger than some of the ones I had already climbed, but I was wrong. These hills really hurt bad. I have no idea how I climbed them with out getting off. I was sure glad the dog that came out near the top of one was not looking to bite me. He just wanted to bark at me. There was nothing I could have done at this point but lay down and let him eat me.
I finally made it back to the road I was on with the bridge that was out. I was relieved to be even closer to home. That was until I went around the corner and remembered the last climb on the Schnelville road. Yet again, I some how managed to crawl up it and keep going. I was completely shot at this point and it was all I could do to keep moving toward home. When I finally got there I could hardly get my bike in to the house. After a shower I hoped on the scale and I was 5 lbs lighter than the day before. I am sure most of that was water weight.
Overall the climb was what I needed. I just didn't plan on it being that hard. A easy ride would have been nice too, but I am not getting out often enough to have the only ride of the week be an easy one. Baseball is getting close to being done, so I hope to get some more miles in soon. The ride ended up being 44 miles and I climbed just over 3,000 ft. of elevation. Not too bad for an easy ride.
edit:
Note: This was Sunday's ride. Sorry this didn't get posted in a timely manor. I was too tired.
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