A 43 mile hilly loop around Dash Point this morning. My legs felt pretty good throughout (though a bit of a twinge in my left knee on some hills). I better start doing my PT exercises again on it to strengthen up the associated muscles.
My times and speed for this route are essentially the same as the last 2 years.
Since the middle of 2006 I have spent roughly 840 hours on my bike riding 10,000 miles. (What’s scary is that I have spent nearly exactly the same number of hours, 838, barely moving in front of a computer playing WOW)
Saturday’s ride was the annual loop around Camano Island. It was a really foggy day and visibility was pretty low for most of the ride. Riders up ahead of me would disappear pretty quickly into the fog and cars would appear out of nowhere. Thankfully the roads are pretty low traffic and the ride went well.
It wasn’t quite as cold at the start as in previous year’s (though I had remembered mittens this year so that made quite a difference for my hands, compared to fingerless gloves).
My legs felt a bit better for this ride so I think commuting a couple of days last week had helped them a bit. My pace seemed much the same as previous years so hopefully on track to build on that this year to get faster by the summer.
As a side note, I nearly brought along my single speed for the ride but was glad enough to have the lower gears on my regular rando bike as the ride was hillier than I remembered. Got over 40 mph on one of the downhills without speed wobble setting in (focussing on keeping my arms relaxed).
Saturday morning saw the first in the winter training series rides that SIR run each year. A group of about 50 people showed up to the start at Sammamish Valley Cycle and we went for a 40 mile loop. The route itself had been re-planned at the last moment due to extensive flooding in WA last week. Unfortunately (for me) this meant we had to get above the flooded roads and thus a fair bit more climbing was involved to get to the proverbial “high road”. My pace was pretty slow but I plodded along and finished eventually.
It helped reinforce the decision to start commuting by bike again and so I picked up some waterproof panniers to carry my laptop safely and fixed up my bike for Monday’s commute. Hopefully a couple of weeks of daily riding will get my legs back to flying up these early season hills.
I headed out on Sunday for a ride with SIR, a 52 mile “steady state” pace. Unfortunately a steady pace averaging 16.5 mph after a couple months off the bike did not translate into an easy ride for me 🙂 I ended up being dropped on the way back from our out and back to Flaming Geyser Park. The pace lifted a bit and I wasn’t able to hold onto the draft (then the wind hit me and pow off the back of the pack I went).
So it was a couple of miles on my own before thankfully Peter and Amy came back to find me before my memory of the turns to take failed me. I rejoined the waiting pack after a couple more miles (queries as to whether I’d had a flat or mechanical problem were answered by “engine issues” i.e. me). I managed then to hang on until the finish.
Anyway it was great to be out (ahead of our evening snowfall) and a good motivator to get back in shape so that these rides are indeed easy training rides.