Yup. Thirty-three. That is me age. Arrrrrrrr.

Thomas Magnum – you know, Magnum P.I. – would head out on his surf ski in celebration of his birthday. It was his day alone. It was how he celebrated his life. I get it.

My greatest gift to myself on my birthday, aside from winning the lottery, is to do that which proves I am truly alive. It seems as though the older I get, the more I have to prove to myself.

I almost thought today was going to be a wash – literally, a wash. This is because we had some massively heavy thunderstorms which brought over two inches of rain to my neck of the woods. Weather.com predicted rain all day, but AccuWeather promised a break at 3 p.m. Bless you, AccuWeather. You are truly superior to Weather.com. I figured this out because AccuWeather is my weather app on my iPhone, which accurately predicted the weather. Had I believed Weather.com, I never would have made it out on my bike, today.

I headed out on a route with which I was familiar, but I did not get on the computer to plan a route, beforehand. I just kind of went wherever while being mindful of traffic patterns. Riding around Durand, traffic isn’t too bad, but Durand Road is not a preferred bicycling route, especially south of town.

I felt pretty good. I felt strong. After six consecutive days of mountain biking, and a couple of rest days, I showed a marked improvement in my riding. In two hours and 40 minutes, I increased my distance from 31 to 33 miles. Go, Di! My average speed was 14.4 mph, today. On March 15, a day on which I did a comparable ride, my average speed was 13.47 mph. The biggest difference is that I felt really good after today’s ride. I could have gone further. On March 15, I was pretty much done for after that ride.

It is nice to find out on my birthday that I am improving. It is a slow improvement, but it is a motivator to keep training. Happy birthday to me.