My First Half Century Ride

Today I reached another milestone - completing my first half century (50 mile) bike ride. You can see it here. Janet sent out an email to Velo Club members for an endurance ride Sunday to either Whitewater or Beckman Mill. So, I got up this morning and tried to figure out what to wear. First, I had on shorts and a sleeveless bike jersey. I stood outside a few minutes - too cold. So then I tried a short sleeved jersey with shorts and jacket - still too cold. I pulled some running tights over the shorts and decided that was enough. I threw my phone, a Pria 110 bar, a can of dog spray, and a chapstick in my jersey and off i went.

It was a race weekend for the club, so the only rider besides Janet and I was Randy the Window washer guy. We decided to head to Whitewater Lake to hopefully take advantage of the wind direction. It was a fairly flat ride with just a few rolling hills but the wind was WICKED! We got to the Lake in pretty good time, took a quick breather (read "potty break") and enjoyed the scenery and a snack, then headed back towards home.

There was a nice tailwind for part of the ride, but then we turned onto M which became MM, about an 8 mile stretch of road that was completely into the wind. I was pedaling into the wind, giving 30 mph effort onyl to look down and see the Garmin telling me I was going 12 mph. It was not a good time in the ride for me to be working so hard for such meager results and I found myself choking back a couple of tears of frustration and exhaution. I managed to suck it up and keep going since I didn't really want to look like a baby in front of my friends.

Overall, even with a short stretch of mental breakdown aside, it was a good ride and I think Mike would really enjoy doing it next time with me. We will need to pick a less windy day though! The garmin says I burned 2682 calories on the ride, so now I think I should eat something in celebration - I am thinking about a Weight Watchers Chocolate Cookie Dough Sundae, anyone care to join me?

Yesterday, we went to Jeff and Micheles to bring some new baby clothes. I bought her a jean skirt with pink ruffles, some softer headbands, and a swimsuit with mtching terry coverup. We played dress up and stuffed her round baby body into the ruffly butt swimsuit - it was too cute!