I am Learning the Meaning Of Pushing the Body Beyond

Here we are in Seeley Lake, Montana. Thank heavens I finally found an Espresso cafe. Caffeine has been badly needed over the last three days. These pictures I'm posting are of day 4 of our mountain bike trip (we didn't have Internet in Condon, MT). We completed two back to back extreme days of mountain cycling. I didn't think I could physically and mentally do it, but so far I've survived....and little muscle soreness, but it's bearable.



I just have to mention the meals on this trip have been great. We've had salmon, Chicken Enchiladas, steak and then some sort of shrimp tai entree last night. I'm not a big shrimp lover, so the bike and man and I found a local bar last night and I ordered a late night cheeseburger with fries. Yeehaw, that's my kind of energy food...add a couple bourbon and cokes to that as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of the cool things about biking with a group of 45 people for 7 days is that you get to know many of the other cyclist and we all look out for each other. Here's a picture of Marilyn (today) as she is nursing a little ankle sprain from a fall on the single track yesterday. Adventure Cycling reserved two motel rooms next to the campground so we could all have a community bathroom and showers. This room is also where you would gravitate to if you want Internet!

Yesterday was one of our extreme days. We were biking on the trails for 9 hours and climbed to around 6,600 ft. elevation. I never knew what it meant to climb and climb for hours on end. Now I know what that means to the body and mind. The thing to remember is to continually eat energy bars and DRINK fluids.

Here is a picture of our single track on top of the mountain. After we peaked and headed down the trail, it narrowed a lot! Like scary narrow with plenty of wet rocks and overgrown bushes.

There was a bunch of us that pretty much stuck together on the climbing and decent down the mountain. All of us would ride a little and then stop and get off our bikes to take pictures and to rest the legs.

Even though the climbing was challenging, the beauty of it all just made up for the body aches. There is so much more to tell you, but one thing I can tell you for sure is that I burned 3,000 plus calories yesterday. We had two water/food stops and one lunch spot. It rained again on this particular day so we were all cold and miserable...even the experienced cyclists in our group were having problems with the rain and cool temps. I guess it's unusual two have two straight days of rain and cool temperatures in Montana in July, but most of their weather comes out of Oregon.

Today is our rest day in Seeley Lake. The bike man and I got up early and did laundry...or I should say the bike man did laundry. Guess what was right down the road from the laundromat? An awesome bead shop! This was the best bead shop I've ever experienced with lots of gemstones I've never seen before. I was so excited (for some of you that know me personally, you know how much I love to make jewelry). Thank goodness I'm not hauling all this stuff myself, otherwise I would had to skipped the bead shop.

Tomorrow will be our longest riding day (67 miles), however, I physically know I can't ride another 9-10 hour day, so I will more than likely take the Adventure Cycling shuttle bus after riding 40-50 miles. Not sure if we will have Internet tomorrow, but I hope to update tomorrow if possible. Thanks for following my trip.