Sunday looked like it was going to be the best day of what so far had not really been a spring at all. At nine, it was already in the low fifties, sunny and promising another ten degrees of warmth. Miggie’s daughter was coming over and the two of them wanted to ride on the towpath into Peninsula to get breakfast at Fisher’s.
“You’re coming with us – aren’t you?” she asked as I was suiting up to ride.
It was the last thing I wanted to do. I had time and the right conditions to do a 40-mile ride and I had every intention of doing just that. They would be riding on an over-crowded towpath at gentle (for me) speeds – something that though fun would be anything but a workout. I wanted a workout.
“You guys go. I’ll ride the first part with you, but then I’m going to do a long one,” I said.
Diana looked at me and asked, “how long will you go?”
When I said forty miles and about 2.5 hours, her eyes opened in disbelief.
“It’s really not such a big deal when you’ve done it consistently your entire life. I would imagine I’m over 100,000 miles of riding by now,” I said matter-of-factly.
I don’t know if that’s right, but it must be close. I’ve been taking long rides since I was 12 and that’s over fifty years now. I’ve had some summers where I’ve ridden 5,000 miles and other a thousand or less. Average? I’d think 2,000+ which would put me over 100K, so that’s the story I’m sticking to.
I did manage 40 miles and it did get pretty warm. Sweat was streaming into my eyes and making vision cloudy to the point that I had to stop and take off my bandana, which seemed to be streaming it directly into my right eye. The ride took two and a half hours to complete and I was feeling it towards the end. Once cleaned up though, I loaded Dakota in the car and headed for Jason’s to look for a biking helmet for Miggie. I had a plan to hike after completing that mission.
We arrived at Horseshoe Pond and found the trails extremely muddy, but neither of us complained too much. With three miles under our belts, we headed for home.
It was an excellent workout weekend. Monday should be warm again and after a trip to Performance to see if he can install my profile bars, which do not seem to want to fit on my new bike, I’ll go for another long ride – hopefully.
Hike: 60 minutes. Bike: Two hours and 30 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 70 hiking and 130 bpm on the bike.
Calories Burned: 350 hiking and 1,875 biking.
Bonus: 22,000 steps.
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