Now That’s What I Call a Weekend!

As I wrote already, my main ride yesterday was 23 miles. I also did a quick 6 mile loop earlier in the day to get a rack put on my bike, and swap out my suspension seat post. The original plan today was to go and meet up with the Nice N’ Easy folks and go on my second group ride. When I woke up this morning though, I was rather sore. I knew that I would be able to finish whatever the route was this time, but I wasn’t going to be able to do it quickly at all, so I didn’t want to slow everyone down, like I did last time.

So after I woke up today, I set a new goal: go further east that I ever have before. I found a route that looked nice on mapmyride.com and it clocked in at 28 miles! After running into two unpaved roads in a row last weekend, I decided to drive the route first, just to make sure. In order to make it all the way around the route, I had to get gas for my car. That is a sign right there that your riding distance has really increased. Anyways, after I got $10 in gas, I started around the route. The first half was one of the most beautiful areas of road that I had ever seen. It just wound back and forth through thick trees and slowly rolling hills. It was great. Then I go to take a right to continue mapping out my route and I’m met with an unpaved road. Crap! I wish that Google Maps (what mapmyride.com is based on) would allow you not to show unpaved roads, so I don’t get all excited about a route. I turned around and started to head back. Then I saw what seemed to be another road that went far in the direction I wanted to go and took it. It turns out that road WAS paved. I had found my route. I went back home, made dinner, and then got ready to go.

I knew this new route was shorter, so I wanted to figure out a good way to extend it. I decided to also go through the lake north of me with the big climb out that I’ve mentioned before. After adding that little section, the total for this new route was 24 miles. Certainly nothing to scoff at. I then headed out the door with a bottle of Accelerade, a bottle of water and a Clif bar. I’ve done the northern lake route about half a dozen times now, so it wasn’t that eventful. The climb out was different though. I didn’t stop! I just slowed way down and kept attacking the steep part of the climb out. This was the first time that I had climbed the entire time out of the lake without stopping at all. Sometimes, I even stop twice, but not this time! Actually, I didn’t stop at all for the entire lake portion of the ride, which was pretty amazing to me. I think that I really found my pace. It felt like I was doing no work at all, and next thing I know, I’ve already covered the 8 miles of the lake part. Then instead of taking a right and coming home, like I normally do, I took a left and headed into uncharted territories (at least with me on two wheels).

I kept trucking along at a nice pace and was really feeling great. I don’t know what it was, but today’s ride didn’t really seem to take anything out of me. Once I started noticing that however, I came up to a nice climb that never seemed to end. It would go up for a while, turn, go up for a while more, turn the other way, and just keep on going. I made it about a mile up the hill and then had to stop and take a breather.

This was my first (and only) stop of the day, and it was at 20 miles. Let me say that again, I had gone 20 miles without even feeling the need to stop at all. Go me! As I’m sitting there, this pickup truck stops right next to me, and this lady asks if I need any help. I tell her that I’m just resting and thank her for stopping to check. My faith in humanity has officially been restored. After resting for about 5 minutes, I get back up and head back on my way. And, of course, the hill leveled off about 100 yards after I started again. Isn’t that the way it always happens?

About 2 miles down the road, I come up on a Jeep parked on the side of the road with its hood up and I ask the two girls standing in front of it if they need any help. They tell me they had just called AAA and were fine and thanked me as I pedaled off. Even though I didn’t do anything, it made me feel good to offer my help to someone, since it always seems that whenever I need it, no one offers their help to me. Except for the nice lady in the truck today.

The rest of the ride home was terribly uneventful. Now that I’m home I feel very energetic, like I did yesterday. Something must have clicked in my body, and now my body LIKES it when I take it on long (for me) rides.

So let’s do a little recap of the weekend.

- I broke my distance record, twice (23 and then 24 miles)
- Today’s ride had my highest average speed for any ride over 5 miles (12.12 mph)
- This week had my highest weekly mileage (107.42 miles)
- This weekend had my highest weekend mileage (52.44 miles)
- I am less tired this weekend than I have been any other weekend since I’ve started riding

All in all, I’m very happy with what happened this weekend.