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Beautiful ride today – just spectacular. Today’s ride started out with mild temperatures in the low 60’s. This would be our third 100+ mile day in a row. We still have a hilly 71-mile day tomorrow before our next rest day on Wednesday. I’ve been intentionally keeping it chill to ensure I can keep riding until the very end without injury or exhaustion. Plus, we see some of the most beautiful scenery along the way. It’s a spectacular ride.
My biggest request this morning was to go slowly and easily out of town to let our legs warm up. We were feeling the effects of two long days, one of which had a relentlessly long climb. While we were moving quickly, the resistance was low, and the spinning of the legs was welcome as a way to get warmed up.
Early on in the ride we made our way into the open expanses of the rolling prairies and were met with challenging winds. The four in our group took turns leading our pace-line with each taking anywhere from 1/2 to 1 mile leading. In spite of the winds, we were keeping up a solid pace.
After what felt like forever, but was likely about 10 miles, we could see the shelter of trees ahead and I noted that as soon as we hit the trees, we’d feel the wind die down. That did happen, but so did our first of several climbs of the day. It wasn’t long or terribly steep, but it was giving our sore legs a run for our money.
We had a beautiful run through the trees and made our way up the smaller rolling hills and took advantage of the downhills provided on the other side. Throughout the day, we rode through valley floors with large walls of rock on either side as well as beautiful, thick and lush forests.
Our most heavy stretch was between mile 55 and mile 78. Lunch would be at mile 78 and we expected to arrive there at roughly 1 pm. It was a tougher stretch with a few climbs – one particularly long one in the middle. But we were, again, rewarded with a sizable downhill on the other side.
After lunch, we were fortunate enough to ride an overall downhill grade for the last 30 miles into Spearfish. The scenery was spectacular, and we were able to keep up a nearly 16 mph pace on the day.
Around mile 96, we crossed into South Dakota making it five states through which we have ridden and now riding through our sixth state. If you look closely on the banner photo at the top of the blog, you’ll be able to see the super small South Dakota sign on the other side of the interstate.
The theme of the day was positivity and laughter. it is easy to let negative thoughts creep into your head at any time, but especially on this ride. There is always likely to be someone faster, or someone who climbs better. In the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are 22 people who mostly didn’t know each other just over 18 days ago and we were now taking the time to put our lives on hold and pedal bicycles across the country. How many people would actually do this? We need to remember that the act of getting up every day on this journey and pedaling each and every mile is an achievement. It’s not about how fast or who is first. It’s about challenging yourself and simply riding the ride. We are all getting stronger by the day. It’s hard not to do so when you ride like this. We also need to be cautious because we are putting an incredible strain on our bodies. Most of us are north of 50 and that’s not easy for us. Either way, the power of positivity of mindset can carry us through the roughest days. The minute, however, we cast doubt on our abilities, we open our minds to the downward spiral of negativity which impacts our ability to operate with the power and strength we have within us as a result of our training. We need to cut it off. Immediately.
The second part of the theme was a carryover from yesterday’s theme of joy and returning to childlike play. The focus was on laughter. Our group of four has an immense love and appreciation of having fun and laughing together. We are all self-deprecating and have become comfortable enough to begin to joke with and tease each other. It makes the ride so very enjoyable to belt out a belly laugh or two or three throughout the day. Or maybe even more. We do enjoy the time we are spending together and, while we do sometimes discuss serious topics, we tend to spend most of our time laughing at and with one another.
It’s a beautiful reminder that we can find joy in anything and that taking life a little less seriously makes it all that much more enjoyable.