Week 5 - Sunday

Scheduled for a 40-mile ride today. My longest road ride ever. Rode with Ryan and Rick. Ryan met me at my place at 8:45am. It was overcast, around 40 degrees, and fairly windy out of the southeast. We rode about 3.5 miles to meet Rick at Heroes Park in Meridian near Blackcat and Chinden. Rick was riding one-way to meet a friend for some fishing, and Ryan and I planned on riding with him to the 20-mile mark before flipping around and heading home.

We headed out going west on Chinden with the wind at our backs, hitting 25mph, yet I still struggled to keep up with Rick and Ryan. Decided not to worry about that and focus instead on getting comfortable with my cadence and using aerobars. Not being an experienced road cyclist, these things, along with sharing the road with cars and trucks, are still new to me.

As we turned off north off Chinden onto Pollard and then to Joplin, they slowed up a bit and we rode alongside each other at a more comfortable 20mph or so. We rode west to Middleton Rd and turned north into Middleton itself. We then turned west again on Hwy 44 and road toward the intechange with I-84. This should have been the turnaround point for me and Ryan if basing it on the ride from my house. However, at that point I was feeling froggy enough to continue on to make it 20 miles from Heroes Park. This was going to make our ride nearly 48 miles, but with the wind at our backs that didn't seem like a big deal at the time. Turned out not to be a smart decision!

We rode with Rick to the intersection of Mink and Stafford roads, in the middle of beautiful farm country with little traffic. After a quick water break, we said goodbye to Rick and turned back east into the teeth of the wind that had been our buddy on the way out. It was miserable and slow, with our pace dropping at times to 12.5mph. We struggled along reversing our route and when we could, rode side by side to talk and take our minds off the fatigue and wind. It seemed like twice the distance we'd ridden on the way out.

As we finally arrived back in Meridian around noon, the rain that was forecast for the afternoon arrived right on time. It rained hard for the last mile or so to my house, but I felt fortunate it hadn't arrived sooner given the struggle the return trip already was.

I arrived home exhausted and hungry. After going through the kitchen like a tornado, I crashed hard for an hour or so nap.

All in all, I was pleased with knowing I'd done a 48 mile ride in unfavorable conditions. Even with the slow return trip, we averaged 16.5mph overall. Not too bad at this stage of my training and I'm certainly feeling more confident on the road bike.