Training ride seven: distance – 7.5 miles
Total training miles: 87
Days left to challenge: 347
I am not one of those men who believe that asking for directions is a sign of weakness. If I thought I needed directions I would happily stop the car, or more recently my bike, and ask. The truth is though that I rarely – if ever- feel the need to. I think I have a good sense of direction, my wife however believes something entirely different and to be fair over time evidence is beginning to stack up on her side.
Getting her and our, at the time, very young children lost on a gentle walk – that turned into a forced hike – in the Yorkshire Dales on the hottest day of that particular year that was one that lives in the memory. Driving entirely the wrong way back to our hotel in Santorini with resultant cliff edge drama – that was another… The list believe me does go on. However despite these occasional mishaps I still fundamentally feel they were blips and I do know what I’m doing.
So today I went for a bike ride. Feeling buoyed up by my last excursion I thought I’d push it a little and add a bit more to my nine mile route. Not a lot more perhaps just a mile or so… Fixed on my objective I headed off adding (in my head) a further loop to my previous ride.
Again it felt good and I ‘powered’ my way around the route – not just going further but faster too! As I arrived home a little out of breath my run keeper app chirped out – “total distance 7.5 miles”. Darn GPS! I thought, it’s obviously not picked up part of my ride so I turned to my bike trip measurer. 7.5 miles! The time was good but it is clear that in trying to make my route longer I had actually knocked a mile and half off it.
Perhaps I won’t tell the wife about that one…