This was the day I've been waiting for! We traveled to Vicksburg via the Natchez Trace! We were on the trace for about 60 miles, and what a treat. It was as beautiful as I had hoped and I loved every minute of it...well, almost every minute. When we biked out of Natchez and hit the trace, I suddenly felt like my legs had given up. I could barely pedal that bike! I got off a couple of times to see if my brakes were rubbing--I'd been having some brake trouble a couple of days earlier. It took me forever to get to the first stop--I was slogging along at eight or nine miles an hour and if the scenery hadn't been so lovely I would have been miserable. There were a half dozen women or so at the rest stop, and they started to pull out. A few minutes later, I joined the last few and was pulling out when I noticed that my tire was low on air. Oh, oh...very low! I had a slow leak and had probably been biking on almost no air all morning. You'd think I'd know enough to check the tires when the bike was sluggish.
After we changed the tire, I headed out and I was a rocket. Instead of 9 mph I was biking along at 15, 16, 20 mph! And, though it took me 20 miles, I eventually caught up with all those women that had left from the rest stop just before my flat tire!
We got a really good rainstorm today, but no lightning, and it was warm enough to keep us comfortable. Today was an 82 mile day. No wait, Laurie said it was going to be more like 84. Ooops, sorry, turns out it was 87. And the last several miles were plenty hilly. All in all, though, I feel really good. I have a few moments here and there where I wonder how I'll get up that next hill, but I've finished every day feeling strong. Now...ask me how I feel after 107 miles on Friday! Oh, forgot to mention, this was margarita night...seems WomanTours provides margaritas every time we cross into another state! I can live with that. Tomorrow is a day with options; I'm opting out of biking!
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