43.37 miles!

My goal today was to see if I could do the full 40 miles, the equivalent of the longest ride during my trip. I finally broke down and got a bike rack form my car so that I could start my ride outside of the city, and I found a pretty nice sounding route that started in Lexington Center, went through Concord, Sudbury, Lincoln, and then back to Lexington. The route was only 30 miles, so I started 5 miles further out on the bike path to make it a full 40. At least, this was my intent. I wrote everything down and then for some reason put the sheet of paper on my bed instead of in my purse or some other logical place. I put my purse in the trunk of my car, the bike on the rack, and then was like "where are the directions?" I couldn't find them anywhere, so I figured they were in my car. So, yeah, I didn't have the directions. I had looked at them right before going, and I kind of knew the area, and fortunately I had my phone with g-maps. But I did make a few wrong turns, hence the extra 3.37 miles.

I will start by saying that it was so much more fun riding my bike outside the city and off the bike path. The bike path is nice because there aren't cars, but man is it crowded! Riding on the street there were some cars, but everyone was remarkably considerate. I guess because we weren't in the city. And, they were streets that you can't park on so I didn't need to worry about getting hit by a car door. All in all, it was a pretty great ride!

A few highlights - a little before the half way mark, a little before mile 19 (which probably should have been a little before mile 18, but I took a wrong turn) I stopped at the ice cream place in Concord and got a black raspberry chocolate chip ice cream. It was delicious.  A little later there were two girls with an ice tea stand, which of course I also stopped at and got some tea. That was less delicious, and a lot of it spilled on my hand, but I just can't ride past kids selling beverages.  For some reason I forgot there were horses and cows in Concord. I felt bad ass for riding to a place with horses and cows. The animals were less impressed.

The description of the tour says to practice going down hills, and I had a chance to go down a few really fun ones. They were kind of brutal to go up, but the down was totally worth it. You really don't forget how to ride a bike!

I went over a bridge on the Sudbury River that looked like the perfect place to put in my inflatable stand up paddle board. It was on Sherman's Bridge Road, which is a place that wasn't on my original route. I was a little lost out there and super happy I had my phone.

Bikers are really cool in the suburbs. Everyone nods or smiles at fellow bikers. Even the folks who have on much more spandex than I do (I was wearing my bike padding, lulu shorts, and a t-shirt from Target that says "Ravenclaw" (though to be honest I think I'm much more Huffelpuff, which is so boring).

My legs are feeling tired, but not bad. I was a slacker on crossfit again last week - my excuse is the weather - I was going to go Thurs, but it was 97. Nope. Friday I got to work from home, and I saw with traffic it would take me an hour. I just couldn't deal. Yesterday I went climbing (got up a 5.10, 5.10-, and 5.9. The 5.9 was the only one that was clean, but the 5.10- wasn't bad.) And I walked to Davis and did yoga. And I went for a 50 min bike ride last week. So, some slacking, but not too bad.