I guess I took some time off the blog

Yep, it's been a while since I last posted. I've actually done some riding since I last wrote anything down, but the beginning of the school year and two trips in September have waylaid me. I've not spared much time for anything but work. The workouts I've managed to sneak in were much needed trips out of my head.

Not that I've been burning up the road or anything...but there are four rides I should mention before I forget about the all together.

Saturday August 31
30 miles or so with Randy
Hilly route in my hometown of Springfield, OH. AVS somewhere around 18.

Randy is only just a little out of tip-top form...having recently won his division at the Spirit of Racine Half-Ironman (see results for Male XL2 up to 39). He rocked the 56 mile bike split in 2:23:20. That's an AVS of 23.4 mph, boys and girls. Then he followed that up with a half-marathon in 1:53:32. Compare that to the first half of my marathon in the Spring, which was only about 6 minutes quicker...and, oh yeah, I didn't swim 1.2 miles and bike 56 beforehand.

All this is of course a preface for this: I took a beating. I was out of shape, and it showed. But it did feel good to get the work in. So good in fact...

Sunday, September 1st
25 miles or so with Randy, again
Bike path North of Springfield to Urbana and back

Yep, I went out for more punishment the next day. Didn't eat enough, didn't bring enough water, and fell apart at the end climbing the one big hill on the way home. In my defense, Randy was on his TT bike for this ride, so it was not only a mismatch of fitness and ability, but also of equipment. That made me feel only slightly better.

I snuck in one more ride the following week, my 18.8 mile loop. I did it at 19.3 AVS, snapping back a bit from the hard efforts of the previous weekend.

All was quiet for a while, then last weekend, Saturday, 9/6 I managed to go out for a 21 miler with Patty, the new occupant of the studio next door. We took the Southern route and stayed on fairly flat roads, staying around 17 mph AVS and soaking up the late summer weather. Nice ride all in all.