GettinItDun

I had a wonderful day on Sunday watching the Armstrong 100km ride. It was a pleasure to see so many friends from Vernon, Salmon Arm, Kelowna, and Grand Forks looking so fit and happy. It was also pretty exciting to see the BPR High Performance Team rocking the field. Congrats boys.

So my workout started at 3pm...well actually 3:40pm by the time I got sorted. It began with me realizing that I had no cages on my bike. I had changed my bike seat, and forgot to pack the double cage that goes on the seat. I also had taken the frame cage off in New Zealand. So I put Andrew's on. One cage is not exactly easy for a 2 hour ride, but I'd get water somewhere....I then proceeded to break a bolt that holds on the cage. I now had 1 cage, with only one bolt to hold it on. It was firm, but I wondered for how long.

I set off on my new seat to check it out. It was fabulous for about 20min, then I discovered a whole new realm of discomfort. The only blessing was that I didn't even notice the Armstrong hill as I was entirely focussed on the back end.

At the end of the first hour my cage was useless as the bottle swung down to my ankles every few pedal strokes. I then tucked the bottle in the back of my shorts. It was a little breazey in the shorts! Now the cage itself was swinging around and getting stuck. I rode with my hand on it for awhile looking for something to tie it with. 10 minutes later I saw a farmer walking with a piece of twine in his hand...not kidding. He kindly let me use some and of course had a knife in his pocket to trim it to length....perfect.

I got to the Salmon River store and trotted to the back to the toilet, only to be loudly reprimanded "WASHROOMS ARE FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY!", to which I responded "So how bout I pee THEN shop". The surly woman sold me some chocolate milk. I filled up with water also and made my way back towards Armstrong. As you know, bike seats don't get MORE comfortable over time. I rode off the seat for 50% of the return trip. Hello quads!

Through all this self-indulgence, I did notice the beauty of the place. It is a pleasure to live in this beautiful valley. Today was truly an effort to just "GET IT DONE". I'm sure you've all had a day or two like this.