Smokin’

A controlled burn along the Eisenbahn State Trail this afternoon in Fond du Lac County.

I am starting to get the “switched on” feeling that always seems to coincide with the completion of the first 1,000 miles of each new season. I surpassed 1,000 miles on Saturday. And while that ride was not especially fast overall, I felt very good on the climbs and could sense that “form” was returning.

Today on the flat Eisenbahn State Trail, I established a new personal record of 48:25 over the 15.6 miles from Campbellsport to my house. The old record—set on September 1, 2013—was 50:47, so that’s a massive improvement. I averaged 19.33 mph on my cyclocross bike over a mostly gravel trail.

Improving my time to Campbellsport is a task for another day. My PR is 53:00, set on August 4, 2012. That’s a 17.66 mph average … not bad when you consider the clock starts when I take the first pedal stroke out of my garage, with no warmup. Today’s ride to Campbellsport was a leisurely 1 hour flat, including the handful of seconds it took for me to snap the picture you see above. The picture below kind of speaks for itself:

I do this "time trial" several times each year, and I can't remember any previous occasion on which I made such a big jump in just 4 weeks. That's a good sign.