We continue our love-hate relationship. Eight months ago when I first got it, biking back home from school--which, granted, is largely an uphill climb, but only for a mile--would do me in each time. Slowly, however, it became easier and easier, and now it's a matter of no consequence.

However, while I've been very good this summer about going to the gym, I've been very lax in my biking because of the scary-high temperatures outdoors. But I figured that because I'm in better shape now than I have been in a long while (not that that's very good shape generally speaking, but it's an improvement), coming off losing ten pounds in the last five weeks, I'd be able to try a longer bike route of two-and-a-half miles each way. So I called Momo the fantabulous (otherwise known as Maureen) for company, and we set out on a bike trip to Candler Park.

Hitch: the route we take, designated as bike-friendly by my biking map, has very near the start a very long and VERY steep hill. Result: Marc was dooed in by said hill, which I walked up halfway anyway. Add another three or four merciless hills to that tally and find Marc, about a mile and a half into the journey, pooped and deciding to turn around. So I curtailed the journey and we biked back to my neighbourhood and then to Starbucks instead of the coffeeshop in Candler Park that was the original goal. So the net result was that I biked about three miles to Starbucks and one mile back home (I checked it on Google's nifty pedometer application). Short of the total five miles that I'd originally planned, but not drastically so I guess.

It's still an unaccomplished goal, but one that I hope will become less of a bugaboo after making the attempt a few more times. Updates to follow.

One thing I'll tell myself the next time I try, which will be (I resolve) the first day the outide temperature's below 75: my habit of perpetually riding in second gear, while doable on the moderate hills from campus to home, is not a good idea on hills that would make Sisyphus blush.