Destressing by Biking

Since I’ve been riding my bike, I average around 25 miles each time. This past week, I rode my longest ride to date.

Over the past week or so, I’ve been feeling pretty stressed. Everything has been hitting me hard this year. It started with contracting Covid-19 in March. Then my business tanked due to the pandemic shut-down and my typical client too scared to spend money for design projects when they were struggling to stay open. Last week my dad ended up in the hospital and it’s become clear that he can no longer live alone and needs help with his nutrition and health. Right after he went into the hospital, my lower back seized up (which seems to happen these days when I’m stressed). Add in the election uncertainty and it’s no wonder I’ve been weepy and depressed.

Getting outside and hiking used to be my solution to help relieve stress, but with hiking trails too packed for my comfort during this pandemic, I’ve been turning to my bike and long rides.

On Sunday, since the weather was supposed to be sunny (though cold), I knew I had to get outside and do a long ride. Where? My favorite trail – the Olympic Discovery Trail. I’ve ridden a section of it twice, but wanted to explore a different section. This time, I was going to ride from the eastside of Sequim to Ediz Hook & the Coast Guard station on the westside of Port Angeles and back. I needed this long ride to clear my head and destress!

I started my ride with another woman from the Facebook group PNW Cycling Sisters around 9:30 am. I was familiar with the trail through to Carlsborg and loved sharing my favorite trail with her. She agreed that Dungeness Bridge Park was beautiful.

I found that the next section of the trail was more wooded with some steep hills. In some places, the trail was covered with leaves and a little hard to see the edges of the pavement, but it felt like a country road in the middle of nowhere.

I felt comfortably warm on most of the trail, but when we got nearer to Port Angeles and along the Sound, the trail was in total shade and really frigid. My poor knees, being metal, felt it the most, so I pedaled harder to get through that five miles or so.

Ediz Hook was interesting. We had to ride past a paper company and the Tesoro Port Angeles Marine Terminal before riding through the reservation for native birds. We stopped at Harborview Park for a 20-minute snack before turning around to head back to Sequim.

When we had first entered into the outskirts of Port Angeles, we had a really steep downhill right past the highway rest stop. On the way back, this was a very long, steep hill to climb (7.8% grade over 176 feet). My bike doesn’t have gears, so I had to rely on vigorous peddling and my motor providing extra power with the throttle to make it to the top. I just barely made it when my battery depleted and I had to change to my second battery.

Also on the way back, we stopped at a property we had seen earlier that had a huge Halloween display. I even got a lollipop from a basket they put on their fence.

We arrived back to our parking spot around 2:30 pm.

My next goal is 60 miles…mainly to check the last requirement for the Cycling badge on Relive. LOL