Thursday, June 28, 2012

One tenth for each day...

Today I stuck with the plan! I did not add 20 miles to my route! I will be on time to work!

I woke to my alarm at 5:00, got up and ready and rolled away from my driveway around 5:15. It helped that I didn't stop to see what was going on here on dailymile and that I'd readied everything last night.

I rode west on School Street and, skipping right by Stout, took Curtis south to the highway instead. That provided a little excitement with the brick surface and all. On the highway I rode west to Main Street, took it south to Fifth and rode out of town headed west on Fifth.

When I got to the end of Fifth, I took Highway 54 out to Skyline and jumped over to the old highway. I took it to the Coats road and headed south. It was much nicer riding this stretch of road today with my good lights. I could actually see what was coming.

I didn't push too much going south since the slight wind was in my face and I didn't really care about speed today. I just rode for the fun of riding. I hit the hour mark right at Coats and turned east to ride over to Sawyer. I really like these mostly traffic-free roads. Not once did I have a car overtake me from behind and the cars coming toward me were few and far between.

I arrived in Sawyer about an hour and a half after I left. I took a left and rode back toward Pratt on Highway 281. By that time, I had decided I was going to aim for 36.5 miles to commemorate the first anniversary of our arrival in Pratt. That's one tenth of a mile for each day of the year. You knew that, right? From mapping this route last night, I knew it was going to be close to that many miles, so I just had to figure out how to add a little distance to make it happen.

The ride on the highway was pretty nice. There still wasn't a lot of traffic and the wind was at my back. Again, I wasn't in any big hurry, so you can't see that advantage much in the mile splits. I only had one mile over 20mph.

Once I rolled into town, I rode my usual route back toward the house until I got to Howard. Instead of turning there, I rode on to Country Club and took it up to Highway 54. I then only had to add a block detour to get to 36.5 miles right at the house.

That's my morning workout. This afternoon, I'm riding east on Highway 54 to ride a group of 25 to 30 cross country riders in. Several months ago I set up staying at the high school gym for them, so I'm looking forward to the people I've talked with on the phone and emailed back and forth with. (garmin data)

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