84th ride of 2017 - Friday, 6/16/2017

Total mileage for 2017: 1450.3

The website for the PALM (Pedal Across Lower Michigan) tour that I'm doing in just over a week from now suggests that in one's training, a rider should build up to a weekly 50-mile ride in the weeks preceding the event. I've tried 2 or 3 times previously, but have always had to cut it short for one reason or another. Today I tried yet again—and succeeded! 😎

I got myself out of bed at 5 a.m., and began riding at 5:30. It helps me indescribably to begin my ride at this quiet and cool time of the day—by far my favorite time of the day, since I was a teenager. I had done six round trips to Marsh Park one time previously, last summer (July 9), but am at time now riding a slightly longer return route from the park, so that my total mileage today was a new record for me (50.45 miles vs. 50.0 last year). My ride was not very fast, at 6:16–BUT I DON'T CARE! I DID IT! 😇 That was my time spent riding, but I was actually out there quite a bit longer, beginning at 5:30 (61°) and finishing about 1:00 (85°)—the extended time being due largely to the time to charge my phone during my fourth time at the park. Even though it is technically still spring, it sure felt summery at the end of the ride—beautiful clear blue skies until 7:00 a.m. were then usurped by quite extensive cloud cover (and, in fact, they predicted late morning scattered thunderstorms), but then the clouds moved back out and I finished in bright sunshine.

Also, I keep track, doing the math each day, to see how I'm doing relative to my goal of 4000 miles for the year. I'm to the point now where one day's ride—even a big one today—doesn't have a huge impact on the overall numbers. But today's ride was notable in two respects: (1) There are 200 days left in the year, after today; and (2) My long ride today dropped the average miles needed per day for the rest of the year to hit my average from 13.00 to 12.75! (At the beginning of the year, I needed only 10.96 miles/day to make the goal, but of course that figure climbed markedly during the winter as I lost numerous days due to weather).