Valinouet

This morning, the Gazelles outing was to Valinouet, a local ski hill. I drove out past St-Honoré (about 30min away) and we parked at the beginning of the road that leads up the mountain. It was a straight out-and-back route, 25km each direction. Of course, going up was much more difficult than coming down. I was quite impressed with my hill-climbing abilities. According to my Garmin, we climbed a total of 519m. At the top of one of the hills, one of the ladies told me that I was "une bête avec les cuisses de tabernouches" (roughly translated: a beast with thighs from hell) because I was the first one to the top of each hill. It took about 1:10 to climb the mountain, but only 45min to descend, just to give you an idea. The last hill, just before the peak, was very steep; I was climbing very slowly and I kept slowing down and slowing down until finally my bike just stopped and tipped over. I didn't have time to get my feet out of my pedals, so I fell and fell hard. Thankfully, my ego was bruised more than anything; I had to extract some pieces of gravel out of my hand, but that was it. The biggest problem I had today was with my equipment. As I previously mentioned, I had bought shoe covers to protect my feet from the wind and rain. Today, it was quite cool with the chance of rain, so I decided to wear them. About 6km in, my right shoe cover became unzipped and it got caught in my chain, which of course ripped it to shreds. I had to stop and take it off because it was destroyed. It did provide one benefit, however: I got to compare how my feet felt with and without the covers. As it turns out, there was little noticeable difference by the end of the ride. So, either I need to buy better ones or else they really don't make a difference. I'm going to try taking them back to the store to get my money back or at least a replacement set. The second problem was my gloves. At the top of the hill, I noticed that there was a rip along the seams. Seeing as I bought them only yesterday, I'm certainly going to take them back and get new ones. Gear problems aside, it was a good ride, not too cold, and the descent was super fun. I maxed out at ~60km/h, which was awesome but also a little scary, especially given the quality of the road.
When I got home, I was starving and sore. According to my Garmin, I burned 1258 calories over the course of the 2 hour ride. Immediately after I showered and ate, I decided to take a nap. Chris was gone all afternoon and evening with his football stuff, so I spent the day alternating between cleaning and writing progress reports. It's sad to say, but I think I prefer doing dishes to writing evaluations. I have completed 16 of the 29 that I need to complete before Wednesday and I'll probably spend most of tomorrow working on them too.