• Home
  • About Me
  • Tools (and such)

Five Baht Elephant

my crafty home

July 19, 2013

Riding Past the Trees

July 19, 2013

freemont pass

“I really need to bike more.”

I say that to myself every time I finish a road ride.  An honest to goodness, put-the-bike-shorts-and-helmet-on bike ride and not a lets-be-bop-around-the-neighborhood bike ride. And its sad, really, that I’ve only actually been on my road bike a handful of times this year.

What’s especially sad is that I’m signed up for a lung and leg busting cycling event in 3 short weeks, and I’ve still not made cycling a priority. You’d think that after doing this same event twice now that I’d have learned my lesson and biked more. But no.

I recently ventured west with some friends to ride part of the Copper Triangle course – Mountain Pass #1 Freemont Pass.  We rode from Copper Mountain to Leadville and back. And it was just as pretty and just as hard as I remembered. Especially the return trip up Freemont pass.

Its steep.

I thought for sure I was going to throw up.

My strategy, when the climbs are tough, are to count revolutions. 1 to 100 (“that’s a lot!”) over and over and over. I wish I could say that it made the climb easier.

Do I really want it to be easy though? I’m not going to lie to you, I like that its tough.  I like knowing that I can actually do this – bike up a few mountain passes.  When I first moved to Colorado, I saw cyclists going up mountain passes. And I remember thinking, “That’s just f*ing crazy. No way would I be able to do that. I can’t even breathe.”

I am physically capable of so much more than I realize. And I don’t want to take for granted my ability and capability to be out there in the hills.  One day I won’t be able to climb a mountain.  But today is not that day.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Share this:

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Email

Posted by norine
Filed Under: cycling Tagged: climbing, training

::The Name::

Five Baht Elephant. My mother is from Thailand, where elephants are royal animals. Growing up Mom would tell us to save our pennies, "in case a man came to our door selling elephants." At the time we thought it was the most absurd thing ever. Now I realize it was the Thai version of saving for a rainy day. Lets hope that we can buy an elephant for only five baht!

Receive my latest posts via email

::Instagram::

Load More...
Follow on Instagram

Search This Blog

Categories

  • cycling (13)
  • garden (5)
  • knitting (60)
  • Miles (10)
  • nmaf (7)
  • photobook (10)
  • photography (79)
  • random (28)
  • running (55)
  • sewing (186)

Archives

Theme by 17th Avenue · Powered by WordPress & Genesis

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.