I had a good commuting week this week, despite some iffy weather. Mostly because I knew I wasn't going to be riding on Saturday, I stepped it up during the week and accumulated 103 miles!
Saturday I had plans to go to King's Dominion, an amusement park about an hour or so away. It was a hot, humid day, but we had fun going on roller coasters, playing in the water park, and generally being outside.
The weather forecast wasn't so great for Sunday, but 10 intrepid cyclists set out to ride 61 miles. The first half of the ride was great - we set up a pace line. If you don't know what a pace line is, let me explain. You line up in single file and set a good working pace. As soon as the lead person starts getting tired, they peel off the front and go to the back where you draft. The person who was second takes the led and is responsible for maintaining the pace. When you draft off the back, you preserve your energy until it's time to lead again. This works really well for keeping up a fast pace and rotating the work throughout the line. Needless to say, we screamed through the first 47 miles!
Right before the second pit, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped drastically, and the skies darkened. The rain hit just as we pulled into the pie shop. After refueling on a BLT (heavy on the B) and once the rain let up a bit, we set out again for the last 15 miles. Not bothering to maintain the pace line in the rain, we pulled into the parking lot 5 hours after we started, riding about 3.5 hours total with an average speed of over 17 mph!
Hope you all had a good week and stayed out of the heat!
Rachael
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