It's All About Fifty Unless It's FOUR!

Have you ever crossed into the wrong neighborhood? I feel hostile eyes on me and hear threatening whispers, "You're not from around here... you don't belong."

Werewolf country.

A near full moon is descending on my left providing no real illumination and I'm surrounded by menacing things!

I'm enjoying creeping myself out and for the first time in awhile I'm glad I'm on my bike. It's equipped for this kind of work but I have to keep my eyes on the illuminated patch of road in front of me. I don't want any pothole surprises. It changes how I ride, staring into that tunnel of light, moving slower than I normally would, not that I move all that fast anyway.

My first objective is a burg called Magnetic Springs where I plan on drinking its fabled water but my ultimate objective is doing fifty miles. I'm curious about the water. I told goFast I was going to blow by the quarry but it lights up the night like a small city. I stop.

What is it with me and this quarry?

I'm back on the bike still ambling towards Magnetic Springs, glancing from time to time at the werewolf filled moors knowing where the fog banks cross the roads they could be waiting.

Here there be werewolves!

I'm cold and its too quiet and spooky. I have no peripheral vision since I've got to pay attention to the immediate road. I'm starting to believe I've missed the best time to do this which would have been earlier in the season when it's lighter earlier.

Suddenly this raccoon-possum thing darts in front of me, both of us shrieking our terror at each other and its gone.

Super.

If anything is going to cause me harm it's going to one of those things. I'm envisioning going ass over teakettle when I hit a chip and tar section of the road. I've never noticed the tar part of it but the 'chip' are these very fine pebbles coating the road like snow. I go even slower, gravel is a problem for me and I'd like to think others on bicycles but me for sure. I keep relaxing my tense grip on the handle bar, listening to the crunch under the wheels and just keep going. It was an intense few miles and me no likeee. I'm beyond relieved when the sound ends and the road resumes.

I go through a quiet town and I'm thinking that it sure would be peachy if the sun came out and lit things up a bit. I keep glancing to my right waiting for it and finally...

Here comes the sun!

And it presents me with a new problem. What's wrong with this picture?


Imagine you're in your car going down the road the same direction as Bill at say forty-five miles an hour and you meet Bill in that fog bank. I've made a mistake but if I survive I'll learn from it. I employ a weird sort of interval going as quickly as I can through the bank and putting some distance between me and it, repeating at the next one. Thank heavens there weren't that many. I understand better why I haven't seem my fellow bikers out here, it's insane, as insane as this ungodly hour of the morning. One reason bikers dress like dorks is to be seen (there are other reasons like comfort and pride) and I'm in a bright reflective windbreaker so that the folk in the car will notice me but this isn't good.

I'm in new territory now and it's brightening up nicely and I pass Burnt Pond idly wondering how you burn a pond and picking up speed and recalling goFast's advice that I don't want to go down that road. Here there be German Shepherds that go around 21 miles an hour. goFast does interval training with them, me? I can hit 21 going downhill.

I finally hit 37, the next milestone towards being taken seriously and I pull over a short ways down 37 trying to decide if this is the road I need to take. I'm frequently faced with these problems when first attempting a new route but I grab my printout and check - yep take this one.

goFast is no fan of 37 (the road on the left) so neither am I. I don't need experience with it to make that determination. If he says so, good enough for me.

Around twenty miles in I hit Magnetic Springs. My first stop is at what I hope is one of goFast's relatives.

Did I get the right house?

For the life of me I can't figure out how to work the freeze proof faucet! It's this red handle that looks like an old fashoined pupm handle. I'm disappointed that I can't work it but I make not to try it again in the future.

While munching a Clif bar I take the following pic - it just made me smile:

Hineys huh? A one star resturant :-)

Magnetic Springs

These are the kinds of towns I pass through when not going through endless fields. I like them, I like knowing they still exist!

I'm definitely going for fifty now. Since I'm a naughty boy and not wearing any panties underwear my butt and saddle are getting along much, much better. I head out and cross over the river before heading down a road that goFast and intoIt say are some of the prettiest around.

Maybe. One section of it seemed so washed out that it was a little wider than a driveway. I didn't like that so much, but then it broke into an area of real beauty.

The river is just off to the right.

As I'm ambling on down the road I catch a sight that makes me stop and take a pic.

Beehives?

Finally on the way back in before I decide to extend the trip (there will be NO DRAMA about the fifty miles) I pass the Hallmark House, the place I mentioned a few posts ago. I decide to stop and take a few pictures of the rest of the place (this is the one that had the water wheel)

Loud rock music was blaring from the house (Guns N' Roses?) so I move on. I think they've completely lost their minds. It's 9:20 in the morning for crying out loud.

After starting at 5:30 in the morning, four and a half hours later, I pull into my driveway having ridden fifty one miles on my bike!

I don't hurt nearly as much as did after the forty from last week but I do hurt. I also feel very good about myself.

Next...

JRock's Surprise Birthday Party!

JRock and IronMan live in a very beautiful home. I think she was surprised by the party. There were a lot of folk there and I got to meet their parents along with seeing a lot from the gym crew. Ally was there and she provided my wife and I with directions to Put-In-Bay, where we were headed the next day. She was saying, "You go to Los ::garbled unpronounceable Spanish::"

"I don't know where that is," I confess.

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE LOS ::GARBLED UNPRONOUNCABLE SPANISH:: IS?!" glaring at me with this I thought you were cool! look.

We figure it out eventually and get to Put-In-Bay much quicker than without her help.

I didn't get to see much of JRock and IronMan they were busy doing the host thing so I don't know what JRock's big gift was. We had to leave early.

noNeed, her hubby BobbyOrr and her pal who will need naming and I shot the breeze for a bit. They are funny! noNeed and friend were two who I mentioned way back in the beginning. A lot of people were complementing me on my weight loss and I couldn't shut up about my fifty mile ride. There were so many others who deserve mention but I'll tell you true, it's 8PM on Monday and I'm running out of gas. I may touch back on this in the future.

JRock and IronMan - We had a blast! Thanks so much for inviting us!

Sunday, a beautiful day we went to Put-In-Bay. This was my rest day so we rode a golf course all over the place. That was fun!


Monday my wife and I went into the gym together. I had to do an interval workout and I was excited to see if I finally got below 200.

Since my wife was there I was kind of pushing it during the intervals, showing off, I wanted her to see how hard I worked during the week. Then we did about half the ABS workout (come on it was a holiday!) and I was feeling just fine. (BTW the lock was gone and I now have a replacement for it).

I hop out of the shower, towel off and step on the scale.

204

I gained four pounds over the week. Yes I had treats, yes I enjoyed myself, no I don't think I over did it.

Within a second all the complements, the fifty miles, the thirty seven pounds (now thirty three) lost just evaporated. It felt like nothing happened at all, the work over the week, all of it a failure.

Do you know how bitter I am?