biking.

I live right off Decatur in Las Vegas and it ends at the shooting range. At some point in time I got it in my head that I was going to bike to the very end of Decatur- the very top of the hill. No idea why. It taunts me whenever I see it. I gave it a go last year just to see where I could get. This guy (serious cyclist) passed me up and back like it was no big deal. Made me mad. :) I injured my hip the next day, possibly from overdoing it that day. Today was the first I gave that route a go again since then. I've put it off for fear of hurting my hip again and having to stop all exercise. 

So I rode with my kids to school today and while my son was at speech therapy I rode over to try. I ran out of time (and I wouldn't have gone much further anyway) but I did make it somewhat further than last time. To the entrance and through the roundabout before heading back. If you look real close you can see the end of the road and the furthest red building. I'm going to get up there by the end of summer. Mark my words. It was between 7 & 8 miles that I did today. I prefer to do 8 or more when I bike. But what you can't really see in the pic is there is a serious dip & thus extra hill in there that I stuck with. I have a love/hate relationship with biking hills. In order to protect your heart muscle (and my asthmatic lungs) you have to be in a looser gear and be pedaling more. It feels so much like you are pedaling so fast and not going anywhere because there are so many rotations to make movement. When I did my tri the bike went up to the Kennecott Copper mines in the SLC valley. I stopped frequently for little breaks and was amazed how quickly I could recover after even just 30 seconds. Going up that forever hill felt like such an analogy of life- slow and steady is the only way to make it and it so often seems you're making no progress at all until you stop to turn around and see how far you've really come and the mountain you've climbed.