By the start of last summer, I was happy with my 100k rides. Then came a Saturday in May when I decided to take the long way to Seoul and back — 100 miles and change — and suddenly, 70 or 80 mile rides became the weekend norm.
One of my problems though was that long rides were always limited by time. I felt uncomfortable getting back at 3 in the afternoon. Part of my weekends were for Micha, and being out all day made them not much different than the weekdays when I was at work. But I discovered something else on that hundred-miler — leaving at 5am made for a reasonable return. Even on that day, I was home by 2. On my long rides after that, i was usually home for a late lunch and half a day with the wife, who’s a late sleeper and didn’t miss me much in the mornings anyway!
Now comes November. As usual, the winter months were not good to me. Three straight months of cold weather and late sunrises make for shorter rides. A good stretch that start with Thanksgiving and runs through Christmas and New Years’ Day gives me a head start on “I’ll eat better next month.” And the next thing I knew, I put on about 15 pounds and was out of shape.
Of course I was not as bad off as I was last year. By the time I hit my detox window this year, I was still about 14 pounds lighter than last year’s starting weight. And by the end of my detox, I was about 23 pounds lighter, but still out of shape. I was topping out at one 30-mile ride a week — less than half what I was doing last summer. So, like I say in the title — time to crank it up.
And that meant a 45-miler today. And leaving at 7am to boot (mainly because it was nearly 40 already by 7, but foggy and chilly nonetheless). It’s also time to get the climbing legs back, so we took on the East Taco too.
It was a great ride, and a great route. Looking forward to stretching it to 50 as soon as I can.
