Headwinds...

Tons of riding lately. I'm just trying to log some serious mileage. My legs are good, but my butt doesn't like the saddle time. It'll get used to it.

I knocked off work early yesterday to get a ride in. I went for the 20 miler out-and-back on Old West Point Road. Some friends were in town and we were meeting them, so it had to be a fast one. So a 20-mile sprint it was.

This road bike thing is so different than mountain biking. There's so much time to think. Everything on the road is a reason to think. I think about the people in the houses I'm passing, the cars that are driving by, the emmisions I'm breathing, how many hamburgers can be made with the cows in the pasture, when the last time the lines on the road were painted.

But every challenge on the road is a link to cancer. "Persevere" has become my mantra for hills, sprints, headwinds, and just plain tiredness. The ride out yesterday was fast. I could feel the blood swelling my leg muscles by mile 5. I felt good. I felt mad. Mad? That's a new one. I had to think about that. And why not - I mean I'm riding, right?

Brian lost a friend this week. Skye just wants her husband to support her. Anne-Marie would settle for the strength to get through a day. I'd settle for her being cured. Damn this disease. It's a headwind - and a mean one at that. It's a headwind, on an uphill, at the end of a 20-mile sprint. It's ruthless.

And that's what I was thinking with that headwind, going up that hill, on the last mile before my house. "Persevere." "PERSEVERE!" I guess I can be a bit ruthless when I want, too. Thanks, Hodge, for a good workout. And just so you know, I'll be looking for a more worthy training partner.