A tale of two rides.

Ride #1: From Foster Ave to Milton Lee Olive Park (southbound)

This morning, Prince E and I set out for a bike ride. The sun was shining and there was a light breeze off the lake. I felt very comfortable and even fast at some points along the way. E was super fast. I wish I would have given him Garmina to wear just to see how fast he got at one point. I was very happy with my choice of clothing: two longsleeve tech layers on top and my new cushiony bike shorts on the bottom. I was also wearing my new biking gloves and helmet. I was looking rather sporty. We had a lot of fun. We stopped for a break and a snack and decided to keep going, even though we had planned to go to a movie. (You know we were having fun if we decided to continue the ride rather than go to the movies!) We decided to head over to Milton Lee Olive Park, a place that Betty and I have run through on several occasions. I like to run in circles around the little fountains. This time I biked around them.


While in the park, I noticed that it was much colder than it had been thus far, but I thought it was because it was right on the edge of the Lake. Then we decided to head back home. Fastest mile this ride = 4m 36s; Slowest mile this ride = 7m 16s

Ride #2: From Milton Lee Olive Park to Foster Ave (northbound)

We headed back northbound, hugging the Lake. It was at this point that I noticed a rather strong headwind. Funny, I hadn't noticed the wind at my back coming towards the city. I just had thought I was fast. I am estimating the wind gusts at close to 20 mph. The steady wind was probably about 15 mph. It was brutal. And cold. I tried to stay close to Prince E so he could block some of the wind, but I couldn't keep up with him. I became cranky. Part of me wanted to yell to the runners/cyclers heading south to not go too far, because they would regret it on the way back. But another part (the mean simbasmom part) wanted them to suffer as much as I was. I scolded myself for letting us go so far to begin with. If we had only gone 4 miles south, we would have been home already. Now we still had another 7 miles to go. I regretted not wearing pants instead of shorts and not wearing gloves that covered my fingers (oh, no, I had to look cool). Although my legs were a little tired, I knew that I could go faster if this wind wasn't so strong. At a few points I actually felt like the wind was going to blow me backwards. I struggled to pass runners. It sucked. I tried to divert us to an inner path, away from the lake, but it ended and we had to turn around. I was in no condition to be riding next to motorized vehicles on the street. When we got further north, there was some tree cover, but the wind was still just as strong. At one point, Prince E said "do you want to take a break?" and I snarled back "I just want to be home!" Too bad I didn't have the digital audio recorder going. Would have made for a great podcast. Finally I could see our home. My fingers were frozen. My face was (extra) pink. But we were home. Another person from our building followed us in. He had just finished bike riding too. He said "Wish we had yesterday's weather again." I didn't even say anything. I was too cranky. And too cold. And mom always says if you don't have anything nice to say...
Fastest mile this ride = 6m 17s; Slowest mile this ride = 9m 34s (which is close to my 5k running pace!)



Moving Time (h:m:s) 1:46:41 6:55 pace
Distance (mi) 15.40
Moving Speed (mph) 8.7 avg. 15.1 max