My first "all day ride"

Any training session should have one or more purpose. Today’s were: 1. to get out of bed and ride. My usual drill is to get up, make coffee, have breakfast, do some chores and roll out around ten or eleven. On the Big Rides, the drill is get up (at 6) get dressed, eat, and be on the road by 7 or 7:30. Today, I gave myself some slack, got up at 6:30 and was on the road at 7:30. There is something special about the crispness of the air in an early morning ride that makes it worth it. 2. work on posture. This is a continuing goal, Jay (remember Jay?) pointed out that I ride hunched over limiting my lung capacity and hurting my neck. Part of my problem is core (trunk) strength. I haven’t been taking care of this since breaking my ribs. Guess it’s time to start doing those sit-ups. 3. endurance The only way to gain endurance is to spend a lot of time in the saddle. Today was the first day this season that I’ve spent all day on the bike. 4. Hills. If you avoid them, you’ll never get good at them. And I expect lots of hills riding across country this summer. If you seek them out, you start to love them, and they become not such a big deal.

So I did great on three out of four. Rode 84 miles at 15.7 mph ave through rolling hills. North Brunswick through the Saurland Mountains to Lambertville, up (literally) Rt 29 on the East side of the Delaware River to Frenchtown (had a nice egg sandwich for lunch there) to Rt 12 to Flemington, around a few traffic circles (which I had hoped to avoid) and then back on 514, aka, Amwell Road. Oh yes, according to my cyclo-computer, I burned 5,375 calories!

Tomorrow’s Ag Field Day at the College. I’m going to wear my Rutgers cycling jersey and try to convince some alums to donate.