Distance: 34.4 mi / 55.3 km
Time: 3 hours 1 minute
Route Taken: Cedar Prairie Loop / South Riverside / Big Woods
My plan today is to go 40 miles. I haven't reached that goal yet.
It wasn't too bad when I started off at 10 this morning, but near the end of the ride, the heat, wind, and humidity got to me and I had to go home.
But I get ahead of myself. I started off today knowing that it would be a bit humid and windy. The wind was coming from the west, of course, so headwind on the way home. It wasn't horrible when I started, so I went south along the Cedar Prairie loop.
Part of the trail was closed, so I found an alternate route. I think I tacked on half a mile or so. Not too bad but I had to play in traffic a bit and that always sucks. The people around here are pretty used to bikes, but you always get the few assholes who either don't pay attention to you, or worse, see you and decide to be rude. Nothing happened though, so I don't really have a complaint today.
After a few miles I had to ditch the shirt, and rode in my shorts and sports bra. I may not be in the greatest shape but as I said before, comfort trumps shame in this case. At least I'm not as pasty white on my stomach as I was before.
I stopped at Europa today because they were doing free massages. I had to wait for a bit, but I was the last one. Apparently, I really needed one because all of my leg and shoulder muscles were really tense. That really doesn't surprise me one bit. The woman doing the massages said that I could "really use an hour long massage," which is probably true, but there also might be some motivation to sell involved. The hour massages cost 65 dollars, so no-go on those anyway. It still helped a bit though.
Of course, since I was at the bike store, I bought a couple things. Two insulated water bottles (since my water got to the temperature of bath water) and a new pair of gloves. These gloves have a bit more padding than my other ones. The ones I had were Bell ones from Walmart. They're good, but only up to about 20 miles. After that, my hands started hurting and getting numb. I think the combination of the bar ends and the new gloves should take care of that problem. They're men's gloves, since women's gloves are too small for me. I guess big hands come with being tall. I got the red/white ones (there wasn't a picture on the website). I tried to stick to my theme of red/black/white so my bike and all the stuff matches. I'm a bit weird like that.
I got back on the road and took Killer Hill down. I've mentioned Killer Hill in my other blog Disstraction. Basically, it's a really big hill (who knew). Got up to about 35 mph coasting before reaching the trail and riding back towards home. I figured I would get some fun in before turning into the punishing headwind.
I took one ride around Big Woods before deciding to head home, deciding not to take the entire loop. At this point, the heat and wind had started to get to me. I think I made a good decision, because by the time I got home and up a hill, I was sweating profusely and utterly exhausted.
As I said, I might take a few miles later to reach my goal of 40 miles. I also plan on riding to trivia. We shall see.
Oh yeah, no pictures either. My point and shoot decided it didn't want to work anymore. Yet another purchase to make, I guess.
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