Lessons learned

This morning was full of lessons. Since my husband and I are signed up for a 25-mile bike ride at the end of the month, I am substituting my Wednesday run for a bike ride and working in a long bike ride on the weekends (hopefully). He rides on Tuesdays/Thursdays, and I run or ride on Mondays/Wednesdays. We'll have to figure out the weekends soon, but we are hoping to ride a longer ride together by getting a sitter for the kids. I'd still like to fit in a long run, but I haven't quite figured that out.

I learned several lessons on this morning's ride. It's interesting because a lot of these lessons are things I'm going to incorporate into my classroom this year.

Lesson #1: Know where you are going. So, this morning was my first time to head out on my own. I wanted to get to the trail out by the lake to avoid traffic, but first, I had to get to it. Easier said than done. Chad had told me where to find the entrance to the trail, and I listened...I promise, I did. It just didn't translate well once I was on the bike. So there's lesson #1. If you don't know how to get to where you're going, it just might take longer to get there.

Lesson #2: It might seem all uphill. I swear the whole ride was uphill. I don't remember the downhills. I kept wondering how in the world I'd picked a route that was all upward inclines. But that's kind of like life...we remember the struggles, but we don't notice when we're coasting.

Lesson #3: Keep track of how far you've gone. I forgot to start my Garmin. More than once. I didn't start it when I left my driveway and only noticed when I hit the trail after a few detours, which was disappointing considering I had no idea how much I'd added to my distance just finding the entrance to the trail. Then I went to the end of the spillway and stopped to turn around a grab a drink, stopping my Garmin (why, I have no idea). Yep. Forgot to start it after that too. It's amazing how if you don't know how far you've gone, it can be really frustrating. You have no idea if you're doing well or not. Once again, another life lesson. I think it's important that in any endeavor you pay attention to where you've been and the progress you've made. Otherwise, it's really easy to lose yourself in frustration.

This year, at the beginning of the school year, I'll be guiding my students to make some plans for their lives, roadmaps for where they want to go and how they are going to get there. So, this morning's ride was a test in that. I knew where I wanted to go (sort of) but didn't have all the steps to get there as easily as I could have. And because I wasn't paying attention, I wasn't sure how far I'd gone, which added to my frustrations this morning. Once I mapped the ride and knew how far I'd really been, I was much happier :)

I still have another 15 miles to find somehow in the next month. I really thought my running would make the biking easy, but I really struggled. There were times I thought, "Hmmm...if I stash my bike here, I could run home and come get it later" and "I wonder if Chad would mind loading up the kids to come get me." But in the end, I enjoyed the ride and am really looking forward to completing the HHH with my husband.