Another great riding week, especially in the beginning of the week.
Monday I did my normal commute. Tuesday, I met up with my friend Paul to do the Arlington Loop. That was a great ride and I got in about 38 miles. Then on Wednesday, Paul and I met up with a new friend of his and her husband to do a number of loops around Hains Point. I ended up doing 43 miles on Wednesday! Thursday I did a fast commute to and from work and I took Friday off of work so didn't go riding.
Saturday I had scheduled to do the Hidden Amish, which is one of my favorite rides! It was a little iffy because the forecast was calling for severe thunderstorms in the afternoon and Friday night rained pretty heavily. When I woke up, it was overcast and the ground was wet, but I had said I would only cancel the ride if it was raining hard and it wasn't so I took off.
I met Craig at our usual pick-up place and we drove out to Maryland. We were pretty convinced we'd be the only ones riding and were talking about getting the ride started early and hammering through to finish as quickly as possible to try and miss the rain. So you can imagine our surprise and delight when Michelle pulls in to the parking lot! Michelle's a strong rider and having her along, we knew we'd be able to finish quickly.
We started off about 10 minutes early and rode at a crazy pace, barely stopping at the pits and pushing through the rolling hills. Don't know if it was because of the weather or for some other reason, but the Amish remained hidden. Didn't see one the entire time.
So we managed to luck out on the weather - we had a pretty heavy downpour but it was only for the last 5 miles. We all got drenched, but were so excited to be close to the end that we pushed hard to the parking lot. We finished the ride in under 3 hours and averaged over 17.5 mph! It was pretty impressive and I'm very psyched about it.
I took Sunday off since it was cold and threatening to rain. Hope you all had good weekends!
Rachael