60 km on a bike, but forgetting something

This weekend I finished the Blue Lagoon challenge my second year in a row. I was hoping that this year I'd beat my time of 3:37 from last year but knew it would be hard since my shape is not as good. I had gathered around a few people to go with me this time around but as the weather forecast was crappy all of them canceled and I wound up cycling alone again. Good decision on their part as the conditions were worse than expected. Head wind for the first 20 km, and really muddy parts on the off road section.
After the first 20 km I was dead. And beat. I didn't have much will to finish but kept going. After the first 20 km you also exit the pavement and go on some rough road used for rallying. The gravel was very loose and some parts were so wet and muddy you had to be quite careful. Shortly after going off road I came upon a woman who had a puncture but her pump wasn't working. I lent her mine but unfortunately her second tube punctured as well. We found a piece of glass inside her tire which we took out, and I lent her my spare tube. 20 minutes later she was up and running but we were dead last out of the 160 people group. With about 35 km to go the challenge had gotten much harder in my mind.
When there were about 20 km left I was going down a long decline getting good speeds of about 35 - 40 km/h. As the road was quite rough all I could do was focus on staying on the bike, and minimizing the shake on the bike. When things slowed down I noticed that my Garmin GPS had fallen off the steering bar down that hill. I turned around to look for it but had no luck. With my spirits quite far down, and the biggest uphill in the history of uphills still to be conquered I got my head together and headed for the finish. The last 20 km were amazingly hard but I managed to pick up some speed on the last few kilometers and passed a few bikers. My final time was 3:59 - longer than last year's, but my main goal was achieved - to finish.
The greatest reward of finishing is having the chance of relaxing the tired muscles in the Blue Lagoon afterwards. I had every intention on doing so and enjoying it through and through. I somehow managed to take my dirty bike attire off (with some agonizing pain I must admit). But it was at that very point that I realized I had forgotten my swimsuit at home. So... 60 kilometers biked, every little bit of my will tried and every square cm of thighs absolutely wasted - and my brain couldn't remember the bloody swimsuit! But I did finish... I told myself.

Labels: english, exercise

as written by Tobbi G. at 8:02 PM GMT