For readers of this blog who don't know me, I'm a Yooper. And this past weekend, I finally got to go home for the first time in a long, long while.

While I was excited to see my family and spend time with them, I was almost as excited for the change of scenery.

Now, don't get me wrong -- Wisconsin has some great scenery, as anyone who's biked or driven out toward the IM-Moo course could tell you -- but it's just not...home.

Just given the logistics of the weekend -- a four-something hour drive on Friday night, travelling to Marquette and back for a baby shower smack-dab in the middle of the day on Sunday, and a four-something hour drive back home to Madison -- combined with a hip injury I've been nursing, I knew it was inevitably going to be a light training weekend.

And it was. It was just one of those weekends where life really, really, really got in the way. I'm still trying to assuage the guilt I feel about that, as I didn't get in nearly the training I wanted to. But on the upside, a) I got in some -- and it was hard (more on that later), b) my mental attitude is 100 percent improved, and c) I have a killer weekend coming up next weekend, and d)I got to relax and spend time with my immediate family, extended family, and two of my very best friends, which made me very, very happy (see letter d)...and a happy Erin is a productive, focused, and driven Erin.

Saturday morning, I woke up later than I had planned on or wanted to. The plan was to be up by 7 a.m. at the latest, swim for an hour or so in Lake Antoine, and then hop on my bike. But we didn't eat dinner until after 10 p.m. the night before, our guests didn't leave until 2 a.m., and when I woke up at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, frankly, my only thought was, "If I swim now I'm going to drown." So I forced myself back to sleep for a bit, only to awake to an alarm clock faultily-set for 8:45 instead of 7:45. Long story even longer, Chief of Stuff wanted to try out his new LeMonde Versailles, and by the time we chatted with the fam, got ready, and stopped by the local bike store (Mortl's -- great store...would link to it if they had a site, but stop in if you're in Iron Mountain) -- to pick up some GU-like stuff (and as it turns out, shop) and a recommendation for a good 40-mile route, we didn't actually get on our bikes until noon. Arrrrrghhhh.

I was annoyed about all this on several levels. First, by not dragging myself out of bed early enough, the lake was too busy (holiday-ish weekend and all) to do much safe swimming later on. So that was scrapped. Second, by getting such a late start on my bike, I was using up valuable poolside time that I had sooooo been looking forward to.

I had a general idea of where we could ride, but asked at the bike store if they had any favorite/standard 40-ish mile routes, figuring I could always ride a little extra if CoS didn't want to. One of the techs directed us out toward Aurora via the Upper Pine Creek Road from Lake Antoine, then to Highway 8, to Dunbar, and then to County Highway O via Highway N to Niagra, and then back to Iron Mountain. Simple enough, right?

Upper Pine Creek is a road of local biking and running lore around town because of its myriad of hills. I remembered it from my youth as being a never-ending roller-coaster of steep climbs and serious drops. In reality, it's only about seven miles long, if that, and the mountainous hills were really just some serious rollers. Less difficult than the Whalen Road stretch leading out to Verona on the IM-Moo course for sure. So much so that we nicknamed the hills on Upper Pine Creek the "mini bitches."

We rode down US-2 from there, through Kingsford Heights, and into Aurora. From there we took Highway O to Highway N. This stretch was deceivingly brutal. I'm not sure if it was the short, steep hills that seemed to come up like clockwork every mile or so, or the blazing sun, the fact that the road seemed to stretch out before us for-ev-er, or that we thought we were just going on a short jaunt and went out really hard for the first 20-30 miles, but it all started messing with my head. I got internally whiny, complaining (to me) that I just wanted to be done already. It was about this time when CoS asked me how far we had gone.

Having not checked the odometer for some time, I looked down, surprised to find out what my ass already knew -- we had put in 45 miles already. In looking around at the fire numbers at the ends of driveways we passed, though, I knew we were nearer to Pembine than Niagra, and still a ways from being done. This little bit of info I kept to myself, for fear of a CoS meltdown. It was, after all, his very first ride on his new bike, and only his third or so ride of the year. Logging 45+ miles is a lot to bite off in those circumstances.

Not knowing quite what to say, I opted for this: "The good news is that once we hit Niagra, we only have, like, 5 to 9 miles left, and then we're done!"

He said, "I was hoping you were going to say that the good news was that we were almost to the car."

I knew that we were at least 10 miles from being done, and there was a very good possibility it was much more like 15 or 20, as I had no clue how close we were to Niagra. And I was tired and whiny and really, really irritated with myself for not getting up earlier and as a result, missing the entire day poolside.

It would have been easy to let that line of thinking spiral downward and pedal on in misery. Instead, I decided to try a trick I had read somewhere about focusing on the positives. I never, ever go for that sort of thing, but I caught a wiff of heavy, hot pine scent and it brought me instantly back to my childhood.

"You smell that?" I asked. "It smells like home...like summers when I was a kid."

That smell alone lifted me. As wonderful as Wisconsin -- or anywhere else for that matter -- is, for me, home will always, always be Michigan's Upper Peninsula. There is a simplicity of life there. The place, and the people, have a beautiful and rich plainness about them. And every bend in every road, every building on every street corner, every single view and smell, conjures up images from my life that had previously been tucked away in secret, forgotten corners of my mind.

CoS and I got talking then about our childhoods -- family vacations and traditions and summers. And before we knew it, the small town of Niagra, Wisconsin -- just across the Menominee River from Iron Mountain -- loomed before us.

There was a steep, long hill that climbed through almost the entire town, then it was over the bridge to Michigan, and then a longer, more gradual (and at that point, incredibly difficult) hill leading up to the stoplight that directed traffic between US-2 and Highway 41. We made a right onto US-2, both of us still gasping for breath from what, in a car, I'd never considered a significant hill (later, we'd trade notes and discover that each of us was wanting to just walk it, but didn't because of the other). I shouted words of encouragement to CoS, in part to also convince myself: "Not much farther!"..."We get to turn onto the road that'll take us home right up by that BP station!"...and so on.

But before we turned, I pulled off. "I need to rest before this hill," I told CoS. I was exhausted, my hip and knee were just killing me, and I remembered this hill. It was a little sister to the Old Sauk Pass hill on the IM-Moo course -- long and gradual and deceptively difficult.

So we popped a few sport beans, regrouped, and then got back on to tackle the last 4 or 5 miles of the ride. Other than the first hill, most of the rest was either flat or downhill, and CoS took the opportunity to school me. I couldn't keep up, and didn't want to. I just wanted to ride nice and steady and get the hell home to an iced coffee, the pool, and my US Weekly.

I didn't look at the odometer until we finished, at which point, I told CoS that he had today completed a bike equivalent to that of a half-ironman, plus a few extra miles for good measure. He said that he was torn between going for a coffee and hunting down the tech at the bike shop who had told us it would be a good 40-mile loop to pummel him.

Total stats for the day:

58.8 miles

16.8 mph average

38 mph fastest speed