Making up for lost time

Sunday afternoon, a month after my crash, I finally got the chance to do the 50 mile ride that I was working on when I got hit by the car. It was definitely tiring, but I think if I can just increase my long ride by about 5 miles each week, I'll be pretty good to go for the race on June 6. At that rate, I will have ridden a 60-65 mile ride before century day. If I can get that far, I should be able to mental through 40 more miles. I'll just have to be extra conscious of eating enough and taking breaks off the bike. If one or two of my friends decide to do the race with me, it'll be even easier. The company and encouragement would be huge to me.

The most annoying part about doing my long training ride each week is how much time it takes. During the women's group ride last Thursday, I rode 25 miles in under 2 hours. That was on country roads with little traffic and few intersections. However the 50 mile ride around my home area took me 4.5 hours. It takes so much longer to ride around the south side of Grand Rapids using the bike paths and busy streets. I have to stop at a lot of intersections and slow down for other people using the paths - dog walkers, children, etc. I don't normally mind these delays, but they sure make doing a long ride take a big chunk of the day.

I'm debating whether driving somewhere more conducive to riding without interruption would actually save me time. It depends on how much less time I would need to ride and how long it would take to drive there. For example, it would take me almost an hour to I drive out and back to the route that the group ride used. That's not a time savings.

Oh, well. I've only got 4 weeks of training to go. I guess a few extra hours on the bike isn't such a bad thing!

Also, Happy Bike to Work Week!