I went out on my first ever hooky ride today – technically I didn’t play hooky too much, I worked up until 2:00 and I’d planned on going out a lot sooner than that.

Before I get into the particulars, I apologize, Laura, for not stopping to say hi instead of hollering as I rode by.  As you read on, you’ll see:  I was on a mission.

It was a superb day for a ride, if a little windy.  Sunny, 72 F, 13 mph wind from the south with gusts to 21.  I’ve had a route picked out since last year but I never had the gumption to ride it, well today was the day.  Of course, when I set out, all I could feel was the sun beating down…I didn’t exactly pay attention to the wind.  I headed north for a mile, then two east, before turning south into one of those sustained 21 mph gusts.  Uh, that sucked, for a mile, then a mile east, then five more miles, dead south into that wind.  Maybe that’s what they mean by suffering, because fun it wasn’t.  It was another ten miles before I even caught a whiff of a tail wind…  But then, joy of joys, about 1/3 of the way into mile 17 I turned north for twelve glorious miles – and only two stop signs that whole stretch.  I rode the big ring for all twelve miles, uphill and down every mile between 2:18 and 3:00.  I finally got to see what I could do with a long stretch of decent road with no stops (and a nice tailwind).  Now that was fun!

In the end I was stopped by another flipping train (Whiskey – Tango – Foxtrot, what gives with the trains lately), three stop lights, a handful of stop signs and still managed to beat every long distance personal best time that I set last year.  35.5 miles in just under 2 hours and an average pace of 17.9 mph – and I haven’t put on my aero bars yet.  Not to shabby if I do say so myself.

Oh, I’ve got some good news:  I found my bonk zone.   The bad news is that my bonk zone is right around 33 miles and I didn’t bother to bring any food with me.  That last two and a half were rough but I was right as rain after a banana and an apple (and another two bottles of water).

Personal Bests:

1 Hour (19.97 miles – previous 18.09 miles).  50km by 1h:25min (this was the birthday ride, we were taking the scenic route and I never bothered to ride that far because I was training for an Olympic).  26.2 miles by 10min:03sec.  20k by 3min:42sec.  And 15k by 2min:53sec.