Sunday, December 28, 2008

And then there were twelve...

23 miles today. I should pass 4,000 sometime tomorrow morning. I could probably try for 4,100 if I really wanted to. I'm not setting that as a goal or anything, but with the way the weather looks right now, it probably wouldn't be hard to do, as long as Heather doesn't get sick of me spending most of my time off riding a bike. Maybe after tomorrow I should take a couple of days off and wait until the Icycle Bicycle to ride again. I'm not sure I can do that, though...

The knee didn't really bother me too much today. I could definitely feel it in the background after the first few miles, but I took a second to lower my seat post by a few millimeters, and I didn't really notice it after that, aside from a slight dull ache that was already there. Maybe tomorrow I won't even think about it.

One really crazy thing about today's ride was the wind. It was (according to weather.com) blowing anywhere from 20-30mph, with gusts up to 45 or something. I could definitely feel it in my face for most of the ride, and places where I can normally get up to 20-21 mph were slowed down to 13-14mph.

For one small stretch, though, I finally got to know what a good tailwind is like. I was on some mostly flat, straight road behind the waterfront in Homestead. I can normally do low 20s back there, but with almost no effort on my part I was up to 36mph. Just me! Pedaling! On plain old flat road! It was pretty amazing. Like I said, for the rest of my ride, the wind was mostly in my face, but that little section there was pretty cool. I've always said that I don't believe that tailwinds really exist. I can't say that now.

I'm not sure where I'll ride tomorrow. Maybe I'll throw the bike in the car and pick a different place to start. Maybe I'll try a completely different route than what I'm used to. Who knows? Regardless of where I start or where I go, it'll feel good to hit the mark.

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