Progress, or…?

I rode about 30 miles with William today, give or take a few.  I don’t remember what roads we took, so I can’t plot the route.  I do remember a few bitchy hills, though, that I’ll have to add to the training regimen.  The biggest thing that I took away from today’s ride is that I seem to be making progress.  It could simply be that I was riding with another person today – that always serves as automatic motivation – but I really do feel like something tangible has improved.  My muscles got less sore during the ride, even when I was coming home by myself, and I was able to endure the pain for slightly longer each time I pushed myself.  Ross tells me the pain never goes away, that getting better is simply getting better at handling the suffering.  I still have a lot of work to do, but today was a step in the right direction.