Crushed Gravel

Felt a little like one of these today, only faster.

Back from a week in Pennsylvania, I wanted to do something special to regain momentum for my cycling season.  I rode last Monday, Tuesday and Friday to keep my fitness from slipping too far, but those rides added up to only 65 miles.  Yes, there were some tough hills, but mostly I was touring the subdivisions near my Mom’s house.  Today I needed to make more of an effort, so I did my Eisenbahn State Trail time trial.  As always, the Giant FCR3 was my weapon of choice for the gravel trail.

It’s a little more than 9½ miles from my house to 2nd Street in Kewaskum where the TT begins, and that distance makes for a good warmup.  I knew right away that I had good legs and I thought a personal record was possible.  But I didn’t expect to beat the old mark by such a big margin!  I reached the Eden town line sign in 46:27, averaging 18.6 mph over the 14.4-mile course.  That blows away the previous mark—set on May 23, 2010—of 49:44, an average of 17.25 mph over 14.3 miles.  I don’t know how to account for the extra distance today.  I will remeasure on my next trip to Eden, and I may have to settle on an average distance rather than one I have to recalculate with every attempt.

Despite being gone for a week, things are good on the home front: all laundry is done, the grass is cut, the pantry is restocked with groceries.  And it looks like I don’t have a big backlog of work to sort out tomorrow, so hopefully this will be a good week of training capped off by the three-day Fourth of July weekend.  What I’m training for … remains something of a mystery.