Round 2

Around 5:30 yesterday afternoon I glanced out the window across the hall to look for a break between showers to bike home in. I could see the sun and clear sky and decided to go for it right away. Of course, once I went outside I felt a couple of rain drops and looked up. A horizontal line directly over the Wellcome Centre demarcated the boundary between blue sky and a massive wall of rainclouds. Grrrreat.

Despite getting completely soaked until I rode far enough to get out from under the rain, the way home was much easier, because it's largely downhill (which also goes some way towards explaining why the way to work is so hard!). By the time I got home, I just wanted to dry off and was in no mood to either do my laundry or go to the grocery store. I eventually did the latter, but need to get around to the laundry tonight.

The ride to work this morning was a bit easier than yesterday. It's really amazing how quickly the heart/lungs/muscles adapt to being required to do more work than they're used to. The route from John's house to work goes along the ring road bike path (the highway running around the city) for a few miles, then cuts into the woods along a horse pasture and up a fairly steep hill towards Headington. The hill tops out at the end of Osler Rd (where my permanent house is) and from there it's maybe a  mile or so through Headington to the office.

Yesterday I stopped once along the ring road (as it begins to go uphill) and again at the top of the hill after the woods. Today I was able to make it all the way to the end of the woods-hill without stopping, opting to walk up the second part of the hill (which is on a little road called Stoke Place). A little bit of positive thinking went a long way on the ring road, since this time I knew where the turnoff for the path was and I could push myself to get there.

The downside of all this is that my ass is incredibly sore from the saddle on John's bike. Any advice on the matter is appreciated from the cycling-enthusiast peanut gallery (Scottoway).