A good week (+2)

Assistant Organizer Paul led a ride today that looked just about perfect for me.  I had planned to ride to the ride, adding about 30 miles to the day's total, but at 1AM when I noted that the ride started at 7AM I decided that just over 100 miles might be just right. ;-)

5 of us pedaled out under a constant rain this morning.  I of course brought the rain (fendered) bike and wore raingear. I did not have my usual big breakfast before the ride, but with a quick glance at the route map figured it wouldn't be a major problem as we would be hitting several well spaced towns along the way.



As we took off two of the guys were pushing a pretty good pace. I was in raingear and could easily overheat in today's mild temperatures so I did not persue.......  too hard. ;-)

By the time we had biked 25 miles my stomach was growling.  We skirted Forest Grove, if I had been leading the ride I probably would have scheduled a stop there, as we were just over 35 miles into the ride.  But I was just a follower today, and I figured that maybe riding with low energy reserves might be good training,  so I kept quiet and kept spinning pedals.
We pushed on to Newberg, about 65 miles into the ride.  I had a jump on the group getting through Newberg, made a bit more dicey today by a big power outage affecting most of the traffic signals.
I pulled into a convenience store and loaded up on calories. 65 miles is a good distance for me to ride without nutrition, but doable with a good breakfast.  Today it was pushing the limit.  After chowing down about 1200 calories I felt better. :-)

The weather was improving.  The rain stopped and we had quite a bit of blue sky. I took off the rain jacket and pants.  With the combination of being cooler, and now well fed, I pedaled much more strongly. I could have easily dropped the gang, but that's not what this ride was supposed to be about.

The two speed demons were feeling the distance and faded notably on hills. I was just getting my legs!

As we neared the end of our ride I began pushing the pace. I had post ride plans, and no longer had to worry about navigating for the group. (I had the course on my garmin) I took advantage of a favorable wind and moved out at 22-24 mph. I pulled into the finish feeling recharged and ready to ride another lap, but alas, loaded the bike, shared a post ride visit/beverage with my riding partners, then scurried away for my other commitment.

It was an excellent day on the bike, and it topped off 9 consecutive days on the bike where I logged a total of 876 miles.  Not bad at all .........until you know that my friends who are competing in the Race Across America this past week pedaled 3000 miles in that same time!

 ........road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total Today.......108..............0..............0..........0...........108 Jan.........105.............34.............0..........0..........139 Feb.........428............108.............0.........24..........536 March.......809..............0.............0.........22............831 April.........1010..............0.............0..........0.........1010 May..........1000..............0.............20..........0.......1020 June..........1302...............0...............0............0.....1302 YTD........4645............142............20.........46.........4828