Day 55: the long and short of it

This evening, Kate and I went around Ring Road twice. I've been having issues with wearing shorts while biking. I've had so many trial & error episodes with shorts and working out. They always seem to either ride up, slide up, or not be long enough. I thought I had finally found the solution with a pair of long-ish basketball shorts. I was pretty excited to try and get my leg tan on. My arms and shoulders are already nice and bronzed from biking, and in contrast, my legs are pale and sad. Also, it's been really hot over the last few days and both of my yoga pants were dirty, so this seemed the perfect opportunity to break them out.

Things started off alright, but within .2 of a mile, they had ridden up (of course) and the seat began to chafe my legs. Great. I made several attempts to half-stand and yank them down or shift or slide to try to maneuver the shorts down. At one point, I got off, pulled the legs of the shorts down and tried to sneakily slide myself back onto the seat without the shorts moving at all. But they caught on. As soon as I started pedaling, they slid back into prime chafing position. Awesome.

The ride itself was mild (weather wise). Since I figured out that going to the right is harder, I decided we should do that first while I had the energy. It was fairly easy. The second time around (going to the left) was still a bitch, though. I don't know if I was just tired from a long day or what. In any event, I made it around twice, but not as easily as I would like to. It's pretty frustrating. I'm going to give myself credit for being able to conquer smaller hills, though. For instance, the hill behind the gym used to be a bit challenging for me. Now I can make it up just fine without shifting gears and with little effort.

I guess it's just the slow inclines that really kill me. They're not hills. They are far worse. They are just going up and up and there seems to be no end to them. They aren't like a tangible: "Okay, we're almost there!" kind of hill. They're more like "Wtf, when is this gonna get easier?" kind of incline. And I, for one, am not a fan.