I'm a walking zombie

   

In an effort to increase my body strength and decrease my overall circumference, I have been spending extra time at the local gym lifting weights. The plan is to take advantage of the nice air-conditioned building to get in a good workout. Because of this, I haven't been outside this week to ride my bike. 

 Now don't go thinking I have been a lazy bum. One of the workouts that I tried with my gym buddy this week was something called pyramids. That isn't a good name for it. I want to rename it "repeat until you die".

We decided to do lunges, pushups, pull-ups and squats. First we did 10 of each exercise, then 9, then 8, etc. All the way down to 1. In total, you end up doing 55 of each exercise.

Now, don't get the idea that I can do 55 pushups or pull-ups. Ha Ha, yeah right. The pushups were the cheating kind, I used my knees. As for Pull-ups, the gym has a nice handy machine to offset most of the weight so I don't feel like the weak-armed tyrannosaurus that I am.

Even with cheating, I thought I was going to die when I finally did that last squat. Even worse, when I woke up today, I had to roll out of bed, because my body was screaming in pain.

 So if you see me lurching around in the next couple of days, no, I am not seeking for a meal of brains. I am just really sore.

The search for the elusive United Brethren Cemetery

Okay, I admit, I was starting to feel a bit cocky. My legs are getting muscles, my lungs are stronger, and overall, I can go a lot further than I could when I first started biking. My skinny-bummed husband must have decided that my pride needed knocking down a notch because the ride I took with him this weekend shrunk my head back to normal size. I once again realized that I am still out-of-shape.

The proposed plan was to bike to a little cemetery on Muddy Valley Road that he had found via Google Maps.  According to him, there were a few hills, but nothing really terrible, and it should only be about twenty miles.

My husband’s idea of a few hills is not the same as mine. There were more than a few hills; it was a roller coaster of hills.  Unfortunately, my brain was too slogged at the top of the biggest hill, to even contemplate taking a photo. So you’ve been deprived of the view from the top.

To make up for my failure, here is a photo that I couldn’t resist taking.

Isn’t he a cutey. Okay, I don’t know what sex the llama is; I respected his privacy and didn’t look. But whatever gender it is, it was shy and tried to hide behind the tree.  I fell in love with the little bugger.

Further down the road we came across a whole farm of llamas. I got a kick at their hairstyles. Who knew that llamas could look so fashionable?

By this time, I was starting to get hot and tired. I realized we hadn’t even hit the half-way point. That is when a nagging in my head started to say “you are going to feel this tomorrow.”

Finally we came to a dirt road. Hubby announced that he was pretty sure this was the right road to the cemetery.

If you have never road a skinny-tired road bike on a loose gravel road, you are lucky. It’s scary, and to be honest, not very smart.  I almost crashed a couple times because I have the agility of a sea lion on dry land.

After all that, we realized that it wasn’t the right road.  The next dirt road was probably the one we should take.

Hubby, realizing that I am a klutz, rode on ahead to make sure it was the right road.

Here he is riding away on that gravel road.  I loved the scenery around us, so I took this shot.

That ended up being the wrong road too. By then, I was red-faced and boiling hot.

So we turned around and headed home.  On the way I took a couple more pictures of barns because I adore barns.

All total, we rode 28 miles.  Even though my big bum was numb by the time we got home, I felt a sense of accomplishment for surviving the ordeal. I think I will start strengthening my leg muscles at the gym so I won’t struggle so much on those hills.

Oh, about the cemetery—we never did find it.  After looking some more on Google Maps, hubby realized that the next dirt road past where we went would have taken us there.  I guess that will be the subject of another blog post.