July 31 day3

[Luxurious morning; breakfast was indoors at the hotel, and we didn't leave till close to 8, as it was a short day of 101 miles to Bozeman. A chill in the air, it was 42 degree at the start. We rode out of town, turned on MT2 (then 359, 287 and 84 into Bozeman) and climbed pipestone pass for our first crossing of the Continental divide. Another nice, steady climb, maybe 1500 feet or so, followed by a very nice descent and miles of gently rolling farm and pasture land, surrounded on all sides by mountains. After the 2nd stop and only 12 miles of headwinds (I found a good group for that) we turned on 84 and tailwinds, shortly leading to a spectacular ride along the Madison River to lunch. Wide, flowing, in a steep canyon at first then opening out to a wider bit. Locals on tubes and rafts floated by (the temp was well into the 80's by then) Susan had a nice lunch of grilled chicken. I took out my guitar and played 5 or 6 tunes -- people said many nice things. Of course, my legs cooled down completely, making resumption harder. It took close to 45 min to start feeling good again.

So what is that about, anyway? Why do you feel good sometimes and not so good others; whether day to day oe hour to hour? Doing this kind of riding, repeated long days, some hard, I become a diagnostic machine, balancing the feedback from my body with my knowledge from past experience and awareness of what's ahead. So; I pull inti lunch feeling a particular way; and sitting there my legs fil up with fluid; then think that theyre done for the day; so when I get up again after a 45 minute break; I have treat them very gently to be able to get moving againb^ît takes about half an hour before I can start to push at all. I an strong; and habituated to the task at hand; but bargaining with my body is a big part of enduring moments like this.

So tomorrow is a shorter day, hopefully as easy as today, because Saturday is a big one.