What Goes Up, Must Come Down Covered in Mud

Day 2 and I am definitely tired, and most surely looking for my first rest day in a couple of days.  Thomas, my driver, is nice to encourage saying that though I might feel like my training wasn't enough, he certainly would not be able to climb some of the big hills that I've been climbing.  Considering that, in general, he is in much better shape than I am, I greatly appreciate his words of inspiration.

Today was a rough day.  There were bigger hills yesterday, but two days of hills really did me in.  That wasn't much fun.

I did very much enjoy myself, though.  Every time I was climbing a hill I reminded myself that what goes up, must come down.  Unfortunately that wasn't always true today, but there were some great downhill rides.  At one point the speed limit was 40 mph down a hill and I was catching up to the car in front of me.  My mother probably would have told me to slow down but I couldn't have been happier.  Thank God for simple little rules.  What goes up must indeed come down; what goes up, must come down with a great smile on its face.

And thank God that Thomas brought his mountain bike to be my back-up bike.  The trail that I was on for about thirty miles was gravel.  More importantly, though, it was muddy with puddles everywhere.  So a few miles into the trail I had Thomas meet me at a break point so that we could switch bikes.  As soon as I was riding the mountain bike I didn't need to slow down for mud or puddles anymore and very quickly I was covered in mud (hopefully I'll put up some pictures on my off-day coming up).  I couldn't have been more happy.  I love having "battle marks" from riding.  And I thought it was hilarious when Thomas first saw me.  I had said over the two-way radio, "Just to let you know, I'm covered in mud."  But when he first saw me I could tell that he didn't think I was being literal.  He was in disbelief.  I laughed quite a bit.

So today was rather difficult, and I can prepare for another sore day tomorrow.  Despite that, I very much enjoyed the number of wind-inducing downhills, no matter how much I had to climb to get to them.  And, of course, I fulfilled my childhood fantasies by getting mud all over me.