Awesome Ride Weekend

Welcome to the Great Wide Open!

Well the weather finally got nice enough to go outside and ride for a while, and ride I did!  Saturday I decided to go on and "exploration" ride, just to get out and see what was what in the Fort Riley "Back 40".  Well, what I rally found was a bunch of nothing, which was what I really wanted, nothing but smooth roads and lots of them!  Check!

I headed out north and out the ECP (entry control point) and road a nice roller coaster west to Old 77 Highway, which was a nice two lane blacktop that was generally flat and empty, and turned north and rode on out.  I noticed that I was averaging over 25 mph, and I thought "Wow, I am good", until I realized it was the tailwind and not totally me :(.  But I enjoyed that while I was northbound and even snapped this picture as well as the one above:

Taken at about 22 mph, maybe not the best idea!

I realized how easy it was when I turned and took the wind right into my right side and it literally took the wind out of my sails.  I was a nice ride out there with still nothing to resemble civilization out there as you can see below, so I stopped to take these pictures, grab a swig of water, and check my GPS to make sure I was in fact on the right road (the absence of road signs was the rule out here).

I was watching out for tanks at the tank crossing signs!

I can see for miles and miles!  Wait, is that Nebraska over there? I hear that it's nice.

Had to add a little "Walking Dead"!

Well after this little stop, I ended doing a little bit of climbing and found a real long, steep climb and decided to get out of the big ring, and made it to the top and about hacked up a lung at the top (wow, I'm out of shape!), and I tried to get back to the big rind, but my shifter wouldn't get it back over far enough (guess my cable had stretched too much), so I stopped and hand-jammed it back on the big ring and decided not to drop down to the little ring again, so I motored on.

On the back side of the ranges, I found a couple of descents and they we awesome, despite heading into the wind now, since the wind was blowing at 20-25 from the south southwest, but I still managed a nice tuck heading down.  I ended up getting to an intersection that had fencing and gates on 5 sides.  WTF?  Who does this?  Oh yeah, the Army, go figure.  Well I ended up with two choices, ride back to where the fences began and go around them, or slide thru the gate, which was wide enough for my big butt and then I'd would have had to lift my bike over the gap in the gate.  Guess which one I did?  Well I'm not telling, but that pissed me off to no end!  Here is a picture once I was on the other side of the gate.

Note lack of smile and narrow gap in fence.

Well after that little setback, I continued on until I reached the Ogden ECP, and entered post again and this is where I finally saw traffic, people, buildings since I started out on my ride.  Like I said, I set out to find nothing and accomplished that!

But I ended up with a good deal of sun on my face, a 32 mile ride, which despite starting out the first hour at about 19 mph average, I ended up with an over all 16.75 mph average for 1:53:22 total ride time!  Not too bad!  And I know that there is a freaking fence on one of my routes, so I know not to go that way again, and yes, I wore long sleeves because it was "only" in the mid 60s, but this coming week, it looks like 80s!  Oh yeah!  Going to start working on that biker tan lines here this week!  Well hope you all had a great weekend too!  Keep the rubber side down!

February Exercise Update

Well this about sums up my February!  I didn't swim, I didn't bike and I barely ran, so this is how I feel after my activity "reboot".  Part was because I went back to Michigan for a funeral and then relaxed a little too much, but also was when we got 7 inches of snow in one day, which is more snow that I have seen in about 3 years of living between North Carolina and Kansas.  But at least for March, I am back on track, at least on the run / bike part!

The grand total for running last month was 34 miles.  Yeah, that's it.  I know, I have almost had WEEKS that were better than that.  And no bike and no swim, so not too good.  In contrast, during this first week of March, I have 31 miles biking and 12 running, so I have not just quit, at least yet!  But the weather is getting better and warmer, so my motivation is getting stronger.

Also, I have started a non-sporting blog that is going to document my travels in the coming year, and it can be found at http://horsies-facing-in.blogspot.com/ (it was an older blog that I had, and tried to change the name, but oh well!)

So, I guess it is time to get back to work!

After a little down time...I'm back!

Well, February came and went, didn't get much done running as I went back to Michigan for a death in the family and a day after that, we got 7 inches of snow that partially melted and refroze, so not much on the running side of life.  Aside from wreaking my ankle on a patch of ice (on the far end of a 4 mile out-and-back to boot!), I am back up and running, more or less this month. 

After we got back to Kansas, the temps were in the 60's and higher, so sore ankle and all, I was outside most of the days and even rode a nice 24 miler on the bike.  I do have a few more longer rides scheduled, but with the last 4 days of freaky wind (15-30 with gusts up to 40 mph!, run Toto, run!) I have not risked going out on a ride.  Even running in the wind is killing me.  Ran for over a mile into a headwind on a 4 mile run, and was completely out of it for most of the day, ugggg!

And since I have been on the bike, I am thinking of doing a crit or road race on the bike before I head out at the end of this month for deployment, the only issue is that the races are about an hour and a half away, but we shall see what is what later this month!

So other than the layoff, I am good, gained a little weight at home, but lost it in a week back here, so that is a good thing, so just need to keep it up!

Better start working again!  Later everyone!