Of rollercoasters and high emotions

It has been quite hard to keep track of the emotional rollercoaster I seem to have been on lately. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would start enjoying cycling. That first 20 mile ride albeit slow, felt like such an accomplishment! I felt a lot more confident on the bike and I could speed up for short bursts. As a prelude to the triathlon, Pata and I decided that we would go and ride the course in Marblehead last Saturday morning. Since it would be my first ride on the road, we decided to go really early. Naturally some obstacles emerged.....
Stuart casually mentioned that he was going back to Geneva and would not be there for the triathlon. OK, that can't be helped, but that together with the fact that it was raining on Saturday morning, the darkness and my general sense of panic, lead me to flake out. I just could not make that leap, and instead Pata and I ended up having a nice ride on the bike path. It calmed my nerves, and set me up for the next day.
Feeling in a much calmer frame of mind after my swim that evening, I asked Stuart to go to Marblehead the next morning. We loaded up our bikes, and off we went. By 7am we had started on the 10 mile bike course and were nearing the Marblehead neck. The course map was not too clear about which direction to take, so we ended up going clockwise, and I really struggled with one huge hill - in fact it was so bad I had to get off and push - on all 4 loops!
Still it was pretty cool doing that course. I have no idea how long it took, and what my time is, but I can say that the sense of accomplishment was huge! I could not believe that I had done this thing! Yes, I know it sounds a bit silly, but hey, 2 months ago, I did not even know how to cycle!