His Uplifting Placebo

I've been told by my parents and all my teachers since elementary school not to speak with strangers. I do so anyways. Or at least, they come to me first.

Today, I pushed my limits to 32 miles in one day. 20 miles was my last record, and astonishingly enough, the much more previous was 4 miles. Went up to the Fremont BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station and back home. On the way there, I was baffled at how slowly I was advancing, even stopping my bicycle to check whether the wheels were not rubbing on the brakes. They weren't and I continued on my way. I shrugged it off.


Then I'm into Fremont. The roads start to deteriorate, get narrower, and within several minutes, my bicycle shakes harder than the 5.0ish earthquake that happened 2 years ago. I've thought some roads in San Jose were bad, but after my experience here, I don't think I will be complaining for a while. They should reword the Fremont city limit sign above to "Fremont: We rock the hell out of you. Literally!"

Then my front wheel goes out of true ( = goes wobbly) because of that and starts rubbing the brakes. I really then had to pull over to retrue it, wasting minutes on a lawn of a company with my bike upside-down. I fix it, then still notice I'm going slow.

What the hell, did I get fatter or something?

I arrive at the BART station, buy a sports drink at a Vallero gas station and head back.
Turns out on the way back, the whole trip was going UPHILL at a slope small enough that I couldn't detect. The way home was a PIECE of cake. I hardly pedaled.

But that doesn't mean it's always downhill. I approach the city of Milpitas (THANK GOD THE STREETS ARE BETTER HERE) and it starts to flatten out. I have to head back up near the Eastern foothills, which means I'll go uphill again. By this point, I'm tired. Almost approaching my 30 mile mark, and surpassing my previous limit, I wanted to just take it easy from that point on. Whoosh. Another cyclist passes me. Then another stranger cycles up from behind and is side by side.

Now here comes the main point of this blog post.

"Just a bit more!" he smiles and pushes me on. I thank him; he's in the same struggle with me.

That's all I needed. From there on, those words he effortlessly stuck in my head had me pedaling harder uphill. Whizzing past evening joggers and other cyclists, I see the San Jose city limits sign, and can't help but smile at how wonderful my city is compared to the dusty, industrial city of Fremont. I'm home. (Well not really, but my American home.)

Now my present for accomplishing 32 miles? The sky's soft glow. (:

That ends the day.

The power of the mind is amazing.
Hm, what else could I do with it? I wonder if there's a manual that I can read...