55K

Happy mother's day! I know yesterday was technically mother's day, but here in Samoa we get the day after mother's day off so today sort of felt more the holiday than yesterday in many ways. In either event, mother's day is a very big deal here so a bunch of volunteers from our group returned to Falevao to visit their families for the weekend. Most of us, in fact, rode our bikes. There are some members of our group who have extensive biking experience and have been riding around a ton since they've been here. I definitely use my bike to get around town and for convenience's sake, but had yet to endeavor a long-distance trek for leisure. So yesterday was my inaugural attempt. The ride is just over 27 kilometers in each direction. We got up nice and early and noticed a big rain cloud in the distance. After about a nanosecond of pondering it became clear that we aren't capable of riding faster than the wind, so we realized we were bound to be joined on our journey by water. We took off anyways and actually the rain turned out not to be torrential, so it provided some cooling and cloud cover along the way without making the ride miserable. It took about an hour and 20 minutes to get to Falevao where I for one spent the large portion of the day resting and laying around being as lazy as possible. Late afternoon rolled around and we hopped on our bikes for the return journey. I must say, we stopped to take a break about the halfway point back and I was thoroughly finished with all that lovely fresh air. Mostly, actually, it was just that I hadn't felt my butt in about an hour and I kind of missed the sensation. Despite my desire to stop early and camp on the side of the road, however, we made it back in one piece and flopped down to a pizza that someone else made for dinner. Overall we biked about 55 kilometers yesterday which I was quite proud of since I don't even know the longest distance I've biked before, having never been a serious biker. I'm sure it's paltry to anyone who rides regularly, but hey, I'm a runner not a cyclist. And I only got chased by one pack of dogs the entire time. Quite impressive. And I'm not even sore today, more suprisingly (other than the residual numbness in my behind).