I have been aiming to ride 100 miles this weekend, split up over 3-4 rides. It's not looking too promising that I'll make it...I headed out later than I meant to on Friday morning and only had time for 15 miles, and then today I got 33 in, which means tomorrow would have to be a 52-mile day (just 2 miles shorter than my longest ride to date) on a day that I plan to spend mostly in church and with family.
I'm okay with that. I've realized that the way I'm rolling lately is setting very high goals for each weekend. While I haven't quite been making them, the goals have pushed me beyond what I'd do without them. And in the end, all I'm doing at this point is training for this August's century ride and August 2013's Ragbrai, so as long as I keep pushing, I'm doing what I need to do.
The second half of today's ride was a challenge - I turned around in Rapids City only to discover that I was driving directly into quite a headwind...it was like pushing into a wall. Then the raindrops started, and I stopped to put up the hood on my new (cuuuuute) raincoat, but the wind wouldn't let it stay up. So I rode the last 16 miles of the trip pushing into the wall of wind, spattered by rain and occasionally treated to gusts that nearly blew me over. Weee HAAA! Truth: my need to think I'm amazing provided sufficient motivation for me to have a heck of a lot of fun throughout the struggle. And: I made it home! I'm amazing! LOLOLOL WhatEVER.
I am having the recurring happy problem of clothes not fitting me. I pitched part of my underwear collection this weekend; I generally have about 3 sizes in stock and I generally always go for the biggest ones, being an all-about-comfort sort of girl (especially since my undies haven't been ummm "display items" for more than a decade now...). I went to tuck in a shirt on Thursday and realized there was sufficient excess material uhhh *behind me* for an entire other butt - definitely time to ditch the biggest size. YAY! I'm pretty sure this whole paragraph was TMI...sorry...I'm just excited to share success.
Earlier this week, I almost fell twice (once on the stairs) because my running pants have gotten too big. Until now I've been able to just keep hiking them up, but suddenly they are so loose that my phone and keys in my pockets keep pulling them down, making them too long. And they are extra-wide legged, because I've been so ashamed of my legs for so long and I hoped they would work for camouflage. Those too-long, too-wide legs caught the toe of my shoe twice in 2 days and I nearly fell both times, so for safety's sake I picked up a smaller pair today. I'm hoping to gift my old ones to someone plus-sized who wants to get fit (they're still in surprisingly good shape after a full year)...if you know of any such someone, please let me know. I think they are size 2X. There will be more fitness-wear available in days ahead, as well (some of it quite pricey, like the UnderArmour stuff).
I've enjoyed riding in my jeans, but they bag just enough in the butt that my seat catches them and then causes my pantlegs to rise and rise. So today I tried a different tact, which failed miserably: I wore my winter running tights with a pair of loose cargo bike shorts over them. The tights were GREAT. I only wore the shorts because the tights displayed my cellulite a bit too prominently. I'll figure out a different approach; the shorts are even baggier in the butt than my jeans, and they kept getting bunched up by the bike seat and progressively shortening my shorts until they were hiked clear up to granny-panty fit. Ergh. Not sure if I'll work up the nerve to not care about the tights, or try something else.
Lately, I've been thinking about the quote from Christ in Revelation 20: "Behold, I make all things new." I feel like I'm living that on countless fronts, including this whole changed relationship with my body.
I like it.
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