Written by I was very relieved when I woke up on day forty-one as my body was ready for a rest after back-to-back century rides. The additional bonus was the proximity of the hotel to everything in Corning. Nothing seemed to be more than a 15-minute walk from wherever you were. This was going to make it a great day for getting out and exploring but also finding decent coffee, going to the museum and also my massage scheduled for the afternoon.
My day started early at just before 6 am – I could not sleep any longer. I put my clothes on without showering and went down to breakfast taking my laundry bag with me hoping the washer would be free and I could throw a load in while I ate. Fortunately, my plan worked perfectly. I put my load of clothes in and enjoyed the buffet at the restaurant. The waitress told me the cook had called in sick so all they had was the buffet. I was perplexed at who cooked the food on the buffet, but my guess is that they had two cooks and were unable to do individual breakfasts with only one cook. It wasn’t an issue for me as I only wanted the buffet.
After I was finished eating, I put my clothes in the dryer and sat in the lobby with my laptop writing in front of the electric fireplace while my laundry dried. While there I chatted with some of the riders who came downstairs for breakfast. We discussed visiting the Corning Museum of Glass later that morning. I decided to head over to the main street to find a decent cup of coffee and get some work and writing done in the morning and suggested I’d walk and meet them at the museum. After a few hours at the coffee shop slowly sipping on a delicious latte, I received a text that they were leaving from the lobby to head to the museum.
I walked through the gift shop at the. museum which was unlike none I’ve ever seen. The glassworks on display in the gift shop alone were amazing. Though, the idea of transporting anything glass on this trip other than something small and in a box that you could put in your suitcase seemed futile. The museum was as equally beautiful and interesting as the gift shop. The space itself was incredible with large swaths of natural light illuminating the beautiful pieces throughout. The works were incredible and well beyond what I had imagined. I had also imagined that the museum would be heavily indexed on the history of Corning but discovered only one small section talking about the accidental discovery of glass that would become known as Corning ware. We attended a glass blowing demonstration and watched a woman create a spectacular vase in roughly 20 minuets. It is a beautiful art.
Robin, Myrna, Ken and I had visited the museum together and went for lunch afterwards. We walked back towards the hotel, but I left them before they headed into Wegman’s as I had a massage scheduled for the afternoon. Walking to my massage was a little sketchy with at least 3 people on the side of the street trying to engage with me. I kept walking and made it to the home converted to a busies location nearby. My massage therapist was named, Pam, and we started the session talking. At some point she apologized that we’d been talking – which was fine with me – but I did note that I was ready for quiet and relaxation and spent the rest of the time quietly enjoying the deep tissue massage.
Dinner was at a lovely restaurant on the main strip that I had actually made a reservation for not realizing that the entire group would be going. The food was wonderful, though our table waited a long time to receive our food and pretty much shoveled it down and left for the evening. Overall, the day was relaxing and slow, which was just what I needed.
There had been some hiccup earlier in the morning when someone on our ride shared some elevation images from the upcoming rides suggesting that they would be ‘difficult’. At first, I was angry when I saw the images because we had been through this with some negative images and statements made about Big Horn Pass and how it was going to be more difficult than we’d been led to believe. I thought we’d learned the lesson that sharing like this in the group isn’t welcome or warranted. If individuals wish to study each and every foot of each and every climb – have at it. Though for many, it is intimidating and creates anxiety – and I include myself in these numbers. My philosophy is ‘The first rule of climbing is we don’t talk about climbing’. There is nothing that changes the fact that we will have to climb those hills. Period. Nothing. We have also found that what can appear to be a gnarly climb on an image can sometimes be not as bad as the image might portray – or those that are portrayed as not so bad are a little punchier than expected. The reality is the best way – I find – is to simply take each climb as it comes and at the time it comes in the ride. Sharing these images ahead of time is similar to telling young children they will be seeing the doctor in a week’s time and will need to be immunized. For those of us with needle phobia’s, this is the same.
I started typing responses and deleted them several times over before hitting send. I ran into a few of our guides and made mention of this to them in a moment of venting. They reminded me that there is nothing we will be doing that we haven’t already done. With that in mind, I found my trusty Ted Lasso ‘Believe’ image and posted that to the group chat with a message that read:
“For those who seeing images like this makes them anxious… we’ve already come this far and done this and more. We’ve got this!”
And left it at that. The message was just as much for me as it was for anyone else who didn’t want to see images or talk about climbs. We are all motivated differently, and we all prepare differently. We do, however, need to be mindful that not everyone finds those types of messages talking about the difficulty ahead helpful or constructive. Perhaps a ‘Let’s talk about climbing’ group is necessary for those who want to dig in.
We will begin our ride at 8 as we are starting to find ourselves in the colder mornings and getting up early to ride in the cold towards a hotel where the rooms aren’t yet ready is not ideal. Today, we will ride. We will climb. But we are 42 days, 3300 miles, 120,000+ feet of elevation stronger and can absolutely do it.