80 miles. To date, I’ve been on the bike twice this year. Once to ride with Erica 40 miles last week, and a solo 100 miler in January. Hardly the plan for an Ironman-to-be. This was me coming back from several weekends of travel, races and the like. I met the group at 6:15, latecomers meant we really didn’t start riding until 6:30. Sal, Chris Seay and I were the guys on the ride. We went moderate speed to Sandsprit park, stopped for a break, then continued north. We figured a ride over the first set of Hutchinson Island bridges and then north again on Sewall’s Point Road would bringing us to 40 miles. This took us to the power lines that come from the nuclear plant to the mainland, maybe a quarter mile past them. We stopped to drink – being everyone was cold from 40 miles straight into the wind, we hadn’t been hydrating well on the way up. Some were tired and understandably so – this wind was playing into slower speeds and a need to draft whenever possible. Izzy and Lanae provided long and reliable pulls when it was their turn – very good conditioning for those two girls!
The ride back saw us now cruise with a bit less effort with the wind. We stopped at the Shell gas station between the bridges. Interesting place. A girl with a Kia asked Sal and I to push start her car. That worked on her standard transmission, surprisingly! Then we asked the station owner/manager to take a picture of our group – he did and proceeded to toke out of the hookah device that was steaming away on a makeshift wooded patio. So that’s what was smelling up the place. It felt good to momentarily warm up, but time and the sun were helping us now. We were with the wind all the way home and the sun was in our face. I changed Jawbone lenses at the first Sandsprit stop, good thing! We came home all as one group – finishing at Loggerhead Park. Suzanne M, Sal and Suzanne and Rick met at Dunkin Donuts afterwards. I was glad to have pushed through the long miles – my quads felt the effort!
drun4fun 