20150417

Keeping rolling

I was pretty tired, last night, so I got to bed pretty early (though not as early as the night before).  Hence, I ended up waking up to use the bathroom about twenty minutes before my alarm (already set earlier than usual) went off.

Going to bed, there were indications of rain coming, so I got things ready with that (and the temperature in the high 50s) in mind.  Once I was up, though, there was no sign of that at all.  So I dug out a different jersey (one with a zippered pocket; with a jacket, I could just use its pocket), got dressed, topped off the tire (still hadn't fixed the tube), and got on the road.

For the first minute or so, I was wondering if I should have done something more to deal with water, as the roads were still a bit wet, but I stopped thinking about that after only a couple of minutes.

I had planned on doing my long loop that heads down into Old Town, but ended up doing something like my other long loop (Shirlington -> Braddock -> Del Ray -> Crystal City -> Mt Vernon trail -> Courthouse -> Ballston -> home).  Basically, I did that, except that I turned left, on the way back, from George Mason Dr onto Washington Blvd, and took that down to Orland to Powhatan, so as to add a few more miles.

It ended up being 28.4 miles, 1300' elevation, and just over two hours.  Per Cyclemeter, it was just over 14mph, which made me very happy, although Strava knocked that down to 13.8mph.

I did more time above 125bpm, just in the first mile, than all of yesterday, so there was some movement in the wrong direction.  But it was still less than a minute over (and a peak of just 127), so that's not really anything to worry about.

All in all, I was very happy with the ride.  And to make matters even better, I did time it so I got home in plenty of time to get the kids out of bed and ready to go.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping for a group ride; if not, I'll probably do a long ride on my own.  I'm not sure whether it'll be a hard one or not.  The weather's supposed to be fantastic, at mid-50s and dry (Sunday's forecast is a few degrees cooler, but still dry), same as today.  I'm looking forward to it either way.


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