F**kin Hills

**Everyone's comment's have been so amazing. It means so much to me to have you riding along with me on this journey via the blog. You guys are rockstars!**

Day 8 - June 10, 11:14pm

75 miles. Middlefield, CT to Warwick, NY

It turns out that unleashing a perfectly timed burst of expletives while climbing your 25th hill of the day can actually do wonders for getting an extra boost of energy. I discovered this today and so did the people next to me.

Today was our first rainy day and riding wasn't so fun initially. In fact I was kinda out of it for the entire first part of the day. Partially the weather, mostly my pre-occupation with some personal things that have been bothersome. I wasn't necessarily upset, but do you ever have those days where you just can't help but not be happy and cheery? I've learned that what works for me is to kinda embrace this fact, and resign myself to knowing that tomorrow will be a new day in which I'll most likely feel great. Its kind of a more general philosophy of going with the flow and listening to what your body is telling you. However on the other hand, I found that thinking and working through the actual thing bothering me today was very helpful as well

Also, took my first spill today. Am totally fine now but the whole incident was still pretty scary. I was right behind a biker (prob around 17 mph) and our wheels touched as he turned into a gas station. I fell on my left side and bruised my shoulder and hip but nothing else thank god. Seriously, as soon as I recovered I really did expect the worse but amazingly i got away with nothing serious and for this i am supremely grateful. Had i not been wearing my gloves, my palms would've been in serious trouble. The other rider didn't fallover fortunately. On the plus side my jersey now has this sweet hardcore rip on it.

We crossed into NY today and rode along the beautiful Hudson today. The hills were fortunately nothing like the two days in CT before, but 75 miles is the most I've ever done(the previous being 53). After lunch near Bear Mtn, the rain stopped and the weather got a bit nicer. This and a couple things started cheering me up. (Isn't it ridiculous how much weather can affect our mood? Why do people even live in Boston in the first place?) A few of us got to meet Julie's(a rider) grandparents on the way. They were a super cute couple who treated us to snacks. In general i love getting to meet significant figures in the lives of my friends, it really helps me understand and appreciate them way more. Also, I gained an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing Julie struggle to try and explain to them how to take a picture of us with their cell phone.

Then we started riding through this great park that was just gorgeous. I got into some great conversation with this rider Doug who i like a lot. We get along great and just really understand each other very naturally. Isn't it great when that happens?

At one point we stopped for a one minute silence break near a beautiful lake when i had my 4th! deer sighting of the day! Seeing those deer all up in their business not even caring about us silly humans and our wars and complaints and such made an impression on me.

The last few miles is when the hills got pretty ridiculous. Though the 2 mile stretches of downhills were tough not to enjoy. As was my new landspeed record of 46.2 mph!

Tonight we stayed at one of our trip leader's uncle's house. All of Sonya's family was here and it was just a great fun barbecue and destresser. Smore's over an open fire pit topped off the night.

Degreased and totally cleaned my chain (not fun but something you want to do when riding long in rainy weather) and am ready to head into Pennsylvania tomorrow. Only 80 or so miles, no biggie, you know.

I think I've got my personal situation more mapped out now. It's nothing bad or serious, but basically concerns certain group dynamics or lack thereof, and we'll see how it plays out. Should be interesting.

Still no time to put up pictures( there's actually not that much alone time here given showers and dinner and sleep time and everything) but they will be up soon.