New Personal Best

I dropped my beautiful kid off at school this morning, drove back home, changed into the silly shorts and crazy shoes and hit the road. Reached a new personal best today by breaking the 30 mile mark! But man oh man, let me tell ya... The last bit of that ride had me talking to myself. The only thing that kept me going the last 8 miles or so was just to get that damn bike home so I could get off of it. I was pretty wiped out. My left hip was screaming at me, and on up into my lower back. And for the first time, my legs were pretty much gone. There was a pretty stiff breeze today and it is on the cool side, so that may have contributed to my suffering. I found it interesting how, as I rode along, every part of my body would suddenly be in pain and I would feel like I was just done. Finished. El finito. Then a couple minutes later it would all just go away, and I'd feel great. This pattern continued tody for much of the ride after 15 miles or so. I wonder what makes the body do that?

The trail was still quite damp from yesterdays rain, and there were a lot of leaves and sticks were down. This made for a fairly sloppy ride, and it shows on the Fuji. The heavy rain had washed quite a bit of gravel into the path in spots as well. I was half expecting to get a flat tire, but everything went fine. Now that I'm home and have rested a bit, the ride was great. But I don't think I would have said that 30 minutes ago.

The plan for tomorrow is to take the Schwinn over to my pals house for another ride along the lake, which I'm very much looking forward to. Bike racks for the Subaru should arrive today, or early next week. Then I hope to start exploring some of the other places to ride around the area.

• 32.23 miles
  
• 2'18"
  
• 13.2 mph avg.
  
• 25.3 mph max.