Escarpment Blues ...

… and greens and grey, grey, grey roads.  And lots and lots of hills.  Yesterday I participated in the Halton Epic Tour.  It is a bike ride through parts of the escarpment in Southern Ontario.  I rode 80km, at times wondering why I signed up for this.  It is not something I normally do … sign up for these things.  I prefer to hop on my bike and go for a ride from my house.  For as long or as short as the mood governs.  On nice flat roads.

I should also say that I've never been the sporty sort.  I realize the benefits of exercise for the heart so, like taking a medicine, I exercise most days.  But this summer, after really enjoying the Ride for Heart on the Don Valley Parkway in June, my usual summer enjoyment of cycling took on a more obsessive flavour.  I have been riding at least once and usually twice every weekend.  I rode before work until the recent shorter days put an end to that.  I rode a bunch on our vacation.  I have even ridden in the rain!  And I signed up for the Epic Tour.

So off I went yesterday morning and made it through my chosen distance.  I won't say it was easy.  It wasn't impossible, because I have been riding a lot but it was difficult because I live by the lake and there aren't hills readily available to ride.  You have to seek them out.  Which I have done to a certain extent.  But not to an 80km hilly ride extent.

I really only felt like packing it in once.  It was at the top of one of the lesser inclines and I stopped to get a breather and a drink of water.  One of the girls doing the same thing mentioned the upcoming big decline.  If I had the choice between a steep uphill and a steep downhill, I would choose the uphill.  I associate this with a childhood arm break during a flying downhill attempt.  Given I was 9 at the time, I really should have overcome this but, not being the sporty sort and a big chicken, this still hasn't happened.  So after I confirmed that the downhill was worse than the switchback one at the beginning of the ride, I felt like crying and quitting.  I think the only thing that saved me was the check of the GPS that said that there were only 13km to go.  I had to finish.  So off I went, riding both brakes all the way down the big hill.

I automatically assume people that go in these things are the athletes, fitter than fit.  But I realized that there were more people like me than the others.  This became really clear on the: dreaded-the-entire-ride-by-everyone second last hill.  When approximately 75% of the riders were walking it, I knew I wasn't alone.  And it felt good.  And I could cheer the people who were riding it without feeling like I was a failure for not being able to do it myself.

Once at the top, a drink of water taken, I hopped on my bike again and continued, up some more hills, to the finish line.  Happy to be done.  Happy that my husband was waiting at the finish line cheering me on.

I told myself a couple of times on the ride that if I finished, I could go to the Kitchener Waterloo Knitters Fair next Saturday.  It conflicts with a Mountain Equipment Coop Ride in Burlington.  Which one should I choose?  At this point, it will be the knitting but we'll see what next Saturday brings.