hey, the Ride for Heart was like a week ago eh?

so yeah, ride for heart.  sorry, i've been pretty busy and since the new job is pretty restricted as far as internet access goes i haven't had time to post aboot this.

 

to start things off, i am seriously out of shape.  the furthest ride i've done so far this year is about 20 km, so needless to say this was gonna be something.

 

sunday june 1st was the ride for heart, and as everyone knows, i signed up for the 75 km (about 46 miles) ride.  i started near the front of the pack, which i'm sure was irritating to the hardcore bike dorks, at 6:45am.  it was a windy 13 degrees (55 degrees for americans).

 

as i headed out, i thought to myself "hey, i'm keeping up a decent pace - i'm about 10 km/h ahead of my regular speed".

 

that was for the first 5 km.

 

as the back headed off the gardiner expressway on the way up the don valley parkway, the wind got started up again, and we all proceeded to ride the uphill route from the lakeshore to york mills into the wind.

 

coming back down the DVP was nice, as i managed to register a new high speed of 55.6 km/h on my bike computer thingy.  of course, it was a steep downhill and i was pedaling as hard as i could, but hey, still neat-o in my opinion.  the slowest speed i registered?  8.8 km/h coming back up the bayview/bloor on-ramp.

 

after i passed the 65 km point my arse was seriously hurting and my legs were seriously tired.  then the winds started back up.  from the moment i got back on the gardiner expressway all the way to the finish line the winds were nasty, making the last 10 or so km very tiring.

 

when i crossed the finish line, i checked out my bike computer thingy for some stats:

 

total distance:  81 km

max speed:  55.6 km/h

avg speed:  19.8 km/h

total time:  4:05:36

calories burned: 2599

 

last time i checked, 81 was quite a bit more than 75.  at least by my terms.  and really, i should have just done the 50.  but i did finish and was happy that i managed to keep my average speed near 20 km/h.  i'm pretty sure that the big downhill helped with that though.

 

walking around the exhibition grounds, i could feel my muscles start to tighten and get sore.  i must have smelled great.

 

i did a quick once-around the grounds on the search for Martini, but gave up when i realized that i was hunting through thousands of people and my legs hurt from being out of practise.  next year dude, we'll co-ordinate better and have a beer afterwards.