September riding

[emily_in_nc]

NY, thanks for elaborating on the century. I have always heard that the Seagull seemed to be cursed with bad weather. We drove up from NC for it and stayed in a hotel so were especially disappointed with the weather the year we did it -- probably 2004, as that was our big year for centuries before I had my crash in spring '05 and fractured my pelvis. A few years prior to that, we bought a tandem bike in Frederick, MD, and took some test rides in that area. Seemed really nice.

Today was our last day here in Mississippi, so DH and I decided to go for the gusto and reprise a ride we did in May of 2016. From the campground to the town of Sumrall is 50 miles round-trip, and that is what we did. Other than the hilly connector trail (about five small hills with grades 9-15%) from the campground to the Longleaf Trace, the ride was typical rail-trail fare, with gentle grades, so it's a good one to do as a longer ride. But today my old aches from my pelvic fracture mentioned above were really barking at me (lower back/upper buttock on the right side), so I had to take extra stops to stretch. Still, it was a good ride overall, and with the Conti Gatorskin tires DH just installed on my Trek, I was 1/2 mph faster than my usual average speed on similar trails -- and 1.3 mph faster than my first couple Florida rides coming back from my jaw fracture. So, that was nice, and it was my first 50+ mile ride since last October. It's a longer distance than I really enjoy, but every now and then I do like to push myself a bit. Should make my more typical 30 miler feel pretty easy when we get back to Florida.

[ny biker]

Way to go on the 50 miler, Emily.

We have been seeing traces of Irma for days now. We already had cloud cover from it while it was still ripping through Florida. The initial forecast for this week was rain every day but fortunately that has not happened. We had some rain yesterday morning, nothing heavy, and the sun was out by afternoon. It was very humid though, enough that I had to close the windows at home and turn on the A/C, which ran a long time and dropped the temperature to 6 degrees below the thermostat setting as it dehumidified. I went for a bike ride last night, 19 miles. It was in the low 70s. I was comfortable in shorts and short sleeves -- if the air had been dryer I would have needed more layers. It was a quiet uneventful ride (in a good way). My new weeknight route is still a work in progress and I made 3 changes last night. I still need to work on finding a better way to cross one very busy road at the top of a hill but overall I am making good progress with each tweak. It will be a good route for colder weather because it's easier to shorten on the fly than the old route.

[Crankin]

It's really humid... had to put that AC on when I got home, despite it being only 77 out. It was sprinkling when i got home and is supposed to shower on and off through tomorrow. My friend is leading a ride at 5:30, a route he stole from us, but obviously, I didn't go. It's my first true rest day in a week. Tuesday, I thought I'd rest, but it turned out I had 2 free hours in the middle of the day, so I walked to the village from my office and did an errand. Only about 1.5 miles, but it was hotter than hell and I walked fast, in my work clothes. I had to use my bath cloths I keep there for when I commute, when I got back. I have my boot camp tomorrow, and since the weather doesn't look too good, I don't think I will be riding. If it's ok in the AM, I may ride to work. Next long ride is Saturday.

[rebeccaC]

sounds like a good ride Emily!! good for you on the 50 miles......NY....hoping you have a good weekend ride!!

Ellie and I did a bike path ride to USC for a meeting today. (a testament to student activism to get a path to the beach ) 19 miles of not needing to be traffic cautious makes for a pleasant ride. Doing a few competitive sprints on the way back also gave us some good exercise…with Ellie taking it a little easier on me. I know I'll probably never have a more supportive and just wonderful CEO in my career. 44 miles total for us with a continuing ride to an early dinner with Alex joining us.

Alex and I are going for a ride on a lesser steep San Gabriel mountain route this weekend to finally start my real climbing exercise. Feels good to be improving my muscular endurance and lactate threshold for climbing again.

eta...btw emily...having a movable home to escape severe weather is such a great idea !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Crankin]

OK, I am seriously exhausted from a hilly ride I did today. Not so much tired exhausted, butI started having mild pain/cramping in my left hamstring, after we ate lunch, and I can't figure out what's up. We road into Harvard, MA, in a circuitous way, to climb Oak Hill. None of today's ride was on unfamiliar roads, just a few we rarely ride on, or, ride in the other direction. So, it's really humid out. Was only about 70 degree when we left, but I wore sleeveless, as it was supposed to go up to 80 or so. I was cool at first, as it was cloudy, but the sun came out when we were climbing Oak Hill. It's shady, so that was not an issue. I had adequate liquid (Skratch, which I reserve for longer, hilly or hot rides). We stopped for lunch at mile 26, where I had half a veggie wrap, ate my Lara Bar, and off we went. We knew we had about a mile climb we always dislike after lunch; so being stiff from sitting, we took it slowly. But, it was after this my hamstring started acting up more. After that, we had a long downhill, so I got to rest it, but I never really felt good for the rest of the ride. The hamstring was hurting, my sit bones were too, and we still had some ups and downs. One thing did make me feel better and laugh was we saw a guy, riding in the opposite direction, with his helmet on backwards. The only other time i have seen this was at the start of a very large ride we were leading, with 3 others, and I was elected to tell the woman. This guy had the back tilted straight up, in the front. It looked ridiculous. If I had felt better, I would have stopped. I did manage to pick up the pace on one of my favorite, semi-flat roads, but as we get near home, there is a small hill, I usually go up at 10-12 mph. DH got so far ahead, I felt like crying... I wasn't bonking, just hurting. He slowed after we turned off this street, and we made it home. My average was similar to rides we do in the Berkshires or Europe, I was so slow! Yes, I rode 44 miles and climbed 2,500 ft., but, it wasn't much different than last weekend. The only difference is that last weekend, I rode on Sunday, and only did a short walk on Saturday, after an intense ride and bootcamp on Friday. Yesterday, I went to bootcamp, it was hard, but I was not sore when I got up.
I have really upped my exercise in the past 10 days, so perhaps I am paying for that. I rolled out my hamstring and will do a short recovery ride tomorrow.

[emily_in_nc]

eta...btw emily...having a movable home to escape severe weather is such a great idea !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It surely worked out for us this time! We enjoyed our evacuation and treated it as a vacay. We had power and water and no worries about the hurricane, though it was a little costly because of the post-Harvey spike in gas prices and our motorhome getting 7 miles to the gallon!

We got back to our "home" campground in Florida yesterday and are all settled in again. They never lost power, but a huge tree fell on one of the fifth wheels that stayed here. They should have moved it to one of the many sites with no trees! Fortunately, no one was in it as they had evacuated, but why they left their rig right by a line of tall trees escapes me.

We are not even sure if the bike paths are open here as there are many, many branches and some trees down all over the entire area, but we'll be checking it out next week.