Today’s Ride ~ 8-30-09 ~ Endurance

2009 August 30

by Jackie

Today was a family ride ~ I had plans for an endurance ride looking to go 20 miles. Ryan was riding a long ride for the first time, and I was towing Hanna as well.

I took a different route than usual because I wanted to head into the wind on the way out ~ which means I had to go north first, that way I could have the wind at my back on my way back home.

The wind really kicks my ASS. I don’t think the wind was blowing very hard ~ but now that I check it is blowing 9 -17mph, which probably isn’t that strong (considering this IS Kansas ~ but hard enough). I ended up spinning in a low gear just trying to keep moving forward, I was going at a snail’s pace but I was still moving.

Ryan was following and at some point I told him if he wanted to go faster he could pass us. He did, and I didn’t see him again lol. (would have been nice to know that, so I could have brought my mp3 player so I could have had something to focus on besides how much harder it was than I expected lol) There were some gorgeous fields of sunflowers to look at along the way which was nice.

At about mile 6 Hanna decided she needed a potty break ~ so we went down a little ditch and she did her business. It happened to be a the bottom of a very long hill. I got back on my bike thinking how much it was gonna suck to restart at the bottom of a hill ~ however, it seemed the little break was just what my legs needed and I was able to get to the top of the hill with relatively little trouble.

I finally made it to the turn around point ~ having seen Ryan on his way back a while back lol. I love riding with the wind at my back. It would have been a lot more fun if I hadn’t had the trailer after about 15 mph it got a little squirrely back there, and I didn’t want to crash us out.

I was able to use the big front gear on my bike for the first time ~ which is an accomplishment. I kept a much better pace on the way back, but seriously began to suffer from crotch pain, and foot pain about 13 miles into the process. This hasn’t happened before on this bike so I was a little surprised I was having so much pain. I think it may have had something to do with pulling the trailer ~ I’m still doing a little more research on that.

I really planned on going a few more miles to make it to 20 today, but was just in too much pain by the time we got to the car to even think about passing it and going the 2 extra miles. Ah well ~ next time.