What a windy weekend!

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny. My tri friend Anne and I had made plans to hit the road Saturday after her swim so I loaded up Ruby and headed off to meet her.

It was colder than we thought, but luckily I had thrown a couple of coats into the car, two pair of gloves along with my Buff. Thank goodness, because once we got out on the roads it was windy and cold! It is still cold here, after all it is only March in the Ottawa Valley!

We headed off through Stewartville towards a little town called Burnstown. The roadways are gradual hills, turning into larger hills the closer you get to Burnstown. Some hills where very deceiving until you looked behind you to see just how far you had climbed. On one particular hill Anne was waaayyy ahead of me, (I am more of a sightseer when I ride), when I noticed two deer on the opposite side of the road. Anne was aero and not letting up, a brown pickup truck was coming up from behind and was obviously trying to give us room but had not yet spotted the deer. The first deer darted across the road and the second deer was not too far behind, but he had to change his pathway to avoid the truck and Anne. The driver of the truck finally spotted the deer and their movement and hit the brakes just ahead of me. I had visions of being a part of deer, bike, rider and truck giblets.....I really don't know how the disaster was avoided but the deer made it across the road, the driver of the truck went on his merry way and I kept blinking my eyes because there had been no reaction from Anne during the whole scenario. When we finally caught up with one another at the top of the next hill, I asked her if she saw the deer, she hadn't seen anything!! Holy moly, I wish I was more confident on the bike because I had my camera with me and that would have made one spectacular picture!!

We made our way to Burnstown and I was ready for a break. We came across a really great little restaurant called Neat Restaurant. Way too cute, we stopped for a quick bite to eat and a coffee and hot chocolate. While we were there a couple came into the restaurant, they were around my age. The gentleman had obviously had had a stroke and was visibly altered and walked with a cane. As they sat down at the table across from us I nodded and smiled. Anne and I continued with our conversation and when we were getting ready to leave, I heard "how far are you girls riding today?" It was the gentleman at the next table, he knew the lingo and was curious as to our route. It turns out both he and his wife use to be avid cyclists and swimmers, I think they may have even competed at some point. We ended up talking with them for some time and you could just see the light shine in this mans eyes when we talked about bikes. I am a true believer that things are meant to happen when they do. We were meant to meet these really nice people and he was meant to be able to "talk about bikes" that day.

We got back on the road and headed towards White Lake, it was another long ride of hills, valleys and wind. By the time we got caught up with one another we headed along towards Stewartville and headed home. It was a great ride and I loved it. I'm finally feeling more comfortable riding in traffic and feeling stronger in general. It was a great ride!

(*so, you computer geeks, are you up for a challenge? I've been trying to figure out how to map this route to show you where we were, if you can let me know how to do it, I'd really appreciate it).

Sunday was our group run at the Running Room, the marathon group was doing 19K. Again it was so windy and we were on hills...yikes, but we did it.

Today is my rest day, so I'm heading off from the office to get groceries and head home to put my feet up. Tomorrow, a 6K tempo at 7 minute pace.

Life's fun if you don't weaken,

Lily
*affectionatel speaking of course*