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| Trek, before the Ride |
Today was a PR day. A Personal Record, which was the result of Personal Resolve (thanks to my friend Jen for that way of saying it).
I've ridden the 50-mile on the Tour of the Unknown Coast many times, back in my 20's and early 30's. I stopped seriously riding my bike around 2002. Sometime in January of this year, I started riding again, with an eye to riding the 50 on May 5th, today. I trained for three months, riding my bike nearly every day, and running 4 days a week. Today was an absolute blast. I rode hard and strong, and felt better than I ever felt in my 20's. My time was 3 hours and 37 minutes. The last 20 miles had a pretty strong head wind that just sapped everything I had. Thank goodness for the man in his late 60's that I picked up at about 8 miles out from the finish line.. He was struggling with severe cramps, and he started drafting off me. We blasted the last 8 miles in, switching on and off to block the wind.
I'm waiting to see the results on line, so find out how I did ranking wise. On the way out, I was in the front group of 5 or 10 riders, but on the way back I lost ground in the wind because I was all by myself fighting for every mile.
When I got back to Ferndale, I had someone take a picture of me (below).
Back home, my neighbor took this one as I was unloading Trek... It must have been a good ride, because I'm grinning!
Looks like I need a new target to shoot for...
