30 miles in 3 days

I have already logged 30 miles on my bike! 10 miles Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Brad is wearing me out! Just kidding. He has already biked even farther than that (by at least double).

Yesterday we biked into Durham to meet some friends for a beer and ended up having to race the clouds home before a huge storm. This morning we biked to EPA to test out the route. It wasn't terrible one-way. But I realized I wont be biking on Monday because I forgot to send the email asking for a locker. So my plan is to bring all of the stuff I will need tomorrow and bike Tuesday. 

It is funny to think I am actually going to start bike commuting. I always greatly admired people who did that, but I never would have thought it was something I could do. Before I met Bradley I hadn't ridden a bike since I was a preteen and even then I wasn't all that good at it. I was afraid of going too fast. I couldn't get up big hills and didn't really know how to use the gears. Honestly three years ago I never would have imagined I'd be buying my own bike, let alone biking to work. 

Eating a pepper from our garden

When I met Bradley, as most of you know, he didn't really have a job. I worked part time as an assistant at Georgia Tech. We both lived with our parents, 35 minutes apart. Bradley did manage some really great dates (to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, to Atlanta Jazz Fest, etc), but we didn't have the money to going out very often. Perhaps this was partially why he was able to convince me to get on his bike for the first time. It was something different to do together, so why not? He was so insistent that I didn't want to look like a sissy for being scared! Once I got used to riding around in the cul-de-sac we would ride to the high school near his house and my desire to impress him forced me to keep up. And I realized it wasn't as hard or scary as I imagined it would be. Slowly but surely I started getting into it. 

Then when I realized how much faster and easier it was to ride his road bike (much skinnier tires than the mountain bike) and I saw him biking to work all the time, the realization that I could too started to really sink in. Why not try, right? What is really stopping me? Buying my own bike was the last step.  

I could prattle on about how cool it is that he actually knows he can do anything he puts his mind to (most people just say that but aren't willing to try), but I don't want to make anyone sick with sappiness. So I'll just end the post here by saying: I'm so glad to have someone in my life that pushes me to achieve things that I never thought I could. Wish me luck this week!