October 11 Weekend Rides

I will start :) I actually was able to ride a full hour on my bike today!!!! No neurological problems, no pain, and several hours later I am still fine :D :cool: I think this was my best ride all year, though of course the season is winding down now. I could have ridden longer I think, but I've an intense group conditioning training session tomorrow morning and I don't want to over-do things.

I've started to feel much better once I dropped from training 5 days a week regularly to 4... that is frustrating, but it is also true that as we age our bodies take longer to recover. I am not saying that this winter won't see weeks where I train 5 days - but that 5th day must be "long and low", not "fast and intense".

One interesting thing about my ride though - I just must be becoming colder-natured. It was about 67-68 when I started riding this morning, and I had tights on. Full sunshine, no breeze, but as soon as my bike started rolling my legs/knees were quite happy to have the Mid-Zero tights. Frankly, knee covers would likely have been enough, but I refuse to spend extra on them. Sure my legs were sweaty when I pulled the tights off when I got back to my car but I also noted I was far more comfortable than last week when I rode in 65-67 degrees with just shorts and a ss jersey. I wouldn't have bothered today if I had waited another hour or so before riding, but I couldn't wait any longer! It just felt great to ride!

Yesterday was gorgeous and I had no clients, but I ran.
Today, is about 57, cloudy, some misting going on. I could have seriously rested today, but we are going out to dinner at the Nashoba Valley Winery, a very nice restaurant, so we decided to ride to a farm stand and get lettuce, tomatoes, etc. The ride was fun, but marred by tons of holiday traffic as we rode through Concord center, and especially by an azzhole woman on a bike, who came up behind me just as we were entering the traffic-y area. First she condescendingly insulted us by saying how "visible" we were (had our front and rear lights blinking; jeez, it's dark and overcast), and then proceeded to cut me off as I was turning right, behind DH. DH told her she was in the left lane, making a right and she responded, "Oh, I was getting away from some woman!" It was clear that we were together, and this is a very congested area of cars, bikes, and pedestrians. She continued ahead of us, and did a couple of other stupid things, and then she turned. Right when we were turning onto the street with the farm, there she was again, coming from the other direction! Anyway, I'm glad I rode, albeit only 14.7 miles. Tomorrow and Monday will be long rides.

As I was riding home form a local Festival with the SAG guy it started to down pour. Fortunately it was relatively warm 80 ish, so I spent a pleasant 10 miles reminiscing about rain in my childhood while listening to the sound of the rain hitting my helmet.

This weekend is the Canadian Thanksgiving. So I took off Friday as a vacation.

We biked through a river park to a large Italian supermarket I had never been before. It was a great ..and we loaded up ummm...over $90.00 worth of groceries --squid ink pasta, pasta shaped in bicycles!! :D Plus sundried tomatoes and other goodies that were quality at great prices. Then more shopping at a farmers' market, etc. That was all 42 km.

Today was 48 km. in different direction to another farmers' market more shopping and route included more lovely fall leaf colour. After handmade pumpkin ice cream at our favourite ice cream place, we chugged uphill to the bluffs to savour more fall colour before home. It didn't feel like a Saturday but a slower vacation day.

Temp. both days were cloudy @1 to 10 degrees C. Very little wind (thank goodness).

Today we did the Fruit Farm ride. We started at a point closer to our original start point, as the ride has evolved over the years, but mostly, so we didn't have to climb an annoying and tiring hill in the last 2 miles. The weather was supposed to be partly cloudy and low sixties. It ended up being cloudy, windy, and I swear, I felt mist in northern MA/southern NH. I was slightly off in my clothing, and I was cold for a good part of the time, which is unlike me. We start in Littleton, MA and stop at Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell, MA, eat a picnic lunch, and head back through Hollis and Nashua, NH, Dunstable, Tyngsboro (1/2 a mile from where we lived when we first moved here), Groton, Westofrd, and back to Littleton. Thankfully, this ride has lots of hard climbing, so I was able to get warm. The colors of the leaves were brilliant, but I was focused on the weather. After lunch, DH and I took off ahead of our friends and slogged our way back. About 5 miles from the end, a couple, probably half our ages (or less) passed us, but they weren't really going much faster. We stayed with them until we turned left and they went right. I am tired, but feel good. It's funny, on this ride, my right knee always starts hurting at the same point in the ride and we always end up with the same average.
Hoping to ride about 30 tomorrow.

Well, I did ride today, 39 painful miles. I also went to boot camp at 5:30 AM, which I should have skipped. I rode with the male half of our friends, who is a super strong rider. We stayed together until we got near the half way point, where it's a long slight climb and I always feel tired there, even if I'm not. I told him to go ahead, and we met up at the 1/2 way point, where we stopped to have a snack, use the bathroom, and I peeled off some clothing. After yesterday, I decided I'd rather be too hot than too cold! It was sunny today, but only 42 when I left my house. Before the half way point, I took my head cover off, and switched to short fingered gloves. At the half point, I took my jacket off. I had on a light thermal top and a sleeveless base layer, which was great. I also was fine with keeping my tights on.
I really felt awful during this ride, some of it my fault... a bit too much wine last night, as well as my legs being dead from boot camp and yesterday's ride. This ride is not really hard. There is only one big hill, near the end (not counting my street). But, I forget, that every time I do it, I feel like it's harder than I remember. There's a lot of rollers in the beginning, steady small climbs, and false flats. I rode my Kuota today, and I fear I am getting used to the mountain gearing on my Guru! I have never used the Guru on this ride, but today might have been a good day to do this. I felt numb, a weird feeling (not literally numb, just weird) that I only have experienced when I did a century. My back is kind of tweaked, too.
Well, as I've said before, I can push through just about anything. But, I need to rest! At least I'm getting close to 2K miles.

Yesterday did 65 km. into a large park area where we stopped for a lovely Thanksgiving brunch at lovely historic restaurant. (It was a rancher's home.) Leaf colours were brilliant but it was an area neither of us were familiar. We ended up on a path where this past summer's river flood sheared off a huge chunk of asphalt pavement into the water below.

Was tired and probably due to my lesser fitness this year and near zero temperatures. But can't complain much with all the fabulous colours we saw. I was also riding on a back wheel that had a broken spoke.

Today I was abnormally slow at a ride half the distance of yesterday's. Oh well. Still weather was fine and sunny.

My partner sets off for his solo bike into Glacier National park in Montana later this week. So my heart was in the ride with him...every day. No matter how tired /unfit I felt.

Didn't ride over the weekend as we'd just gotten back from Missouri on Friday. There, my DH rode the full length of the Katy Trail in four days (averaging over 60 miles daily!), and I drove with our dog from town to town, then rode some on the trail three of the four days to meet up with him towards the end of his day's ride. I would have liked to have ridden more (I only rode 55 miles total in three days) but could not check in early enough at the hotels to get going to meet him to ride more than that. Ah well, every bit helps, right?

We took off all weekend for him to recover and to do errands and chores, but today we did a little ride on the road bikes before it started raining. It was very blustery but a fun ride since we hadn't ridden our road bikes for awhile. They always feel very light and frisky after we've been riding the MTBs for awhile! We only got in 16.5 miles, but there were some hills and wind to contend with, so it didn't feel too easy, just challenging enough.

I also just finished up a blog post on the MoPac Trail ride we did in and outside of Lincoln, Nebraska recently. That was my longest ride of the year at just over 50 miles. Here's the blog post if anyone is interested. It's a really nice trail!

http://travelingtwosome.weebly.com/1...-nebraska.html