Relative Something

Saturday afternoon was darn near perfect for our World Labyrinth Day walk for peace. We had 8 people join us, which isn’t the smallest number of folks we’ve hosted for this annual event. They were all precious individuals, but the one person who was a particularly pleasant surprise was a neighbor we’d never met who dropped in after seeing an invite I posted on the Nextdoor app.

If anybody is wondering, my annual measurement of the trunk of the transplanted maple tree in the center of the labyrinth revealed a 3/16ths of an inch increase in circumference since my initial reading a year ago.

Yesterday, I took the day off from chores and went for a bike ride with Rich Gordon, one of my special friends from the annual bike ride in June. He was kind enough to drive all the way to Beldenville to join me in a loop of country roads over hills and through valleys of the driftless region around our home.

We are always looking for opportunities to season our butts against our bike saddles in preparation for days of long mileage in June on The Tour of Minnesota.

The Rush River valley offers some beautiful scenery after ten miles of farm fields.

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I was pointing out the top of the ridge visible through the trees that will soon be obscured by leaves. Climbing out of that valley was probably the most daunting of the many climbs we pedaled up, as may be discernible in the graphic above showing the elevations we traversed. We weren’t even halfway into the loop, so that effort made the rest of the route seem a little more taxing on our now-tired legs. When we reached the top, we paused for a snack break in the shade and quickly made friends with one of the residents who lived at that address.

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The second biggest climb came when we departed from El Paso. Rich made it look easy.

Compared to the biggest beast of a hill, it was a little bit easier. There was also the psychological boost of knowing we were that much closer to our finish line, and none of the remaining hills would be as long.

I’m encouraged by the fact that I was able to accomplish all the climbing without needing to rely on an assist from the battery I was lugging along in the frame of my Trek Domane e-bike. Having a friend along on the ride was a morale boost that prevented my usual lack of determination to push myself quite as hard.

My body will likely offer up some complaints today in the form of muscle stiffness, but I’ve got plenty of my usual physical activities on tap, tending to things around the ranch to keep me moving.

I’ll probably wait another day or two before my next conditioning ride of any substantial miles. Maybe I’ll opt for a nice flat trail ride to complement yesterday’s hilly terrain.

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