Despite the sunny sunrise, I woke up this morning in a fog. Another 5hr night, totally my fault and the result of having wonderful friends (who are also night owls). Not exactly a "problem" but not helpful for a morning bike commute of over 40 miles. So I did what I've done a few other times this month - I compromised. I took my bike on the bus (and nap) on the way in, and will ride home. It's the best of both worlds.
I work 42 miles away, so I don't bike to work every day for sure. But it's certainly a nice way to shoehorn miles into a busy week. Click here if you want to read more about this not-typical commute. Thanks to my handy-dandy Garmin Edge 350, here's a map of the route I take:
It's really a beautiful route, much of it along the Connecticut River. The first time I did it, I even took some pics. As I mentioned, a couple times this month, instead of doing a full round-trip commute, I took my bike in on the bus in the morning and rode home. The last time I rode Hartford back to Old Saybrook, I even hit a personal record average speed of 19.6 mph for the 42 miles. I don't think that's all that bad when you see the profile (also courtesy of my Garmin):
As you can see, about 1/2 way home - just south of Middletown in fact - there's a BIG climb as the road leaves the river and heads cross-country before returning. Once you're back near the river, there are still a bunch of relatively minor bumps (which do still hurt, btw), but it's a fairly fast ride to the coast.
Note LARGE bottles.
This past Wednesday, during the hottest day of the year so far (upper 90s), I decided to ride home from Hartford again. Well, actually, not home - I decided to meet Mrs. SOC at the animal shelter where she volunteers, on the Westbrook/Clinton line. I had a general idea of how to get there from work. I can read a map after all. But the route I was considering was the only one I knew, down a major road. And I knew it would be busy.Enter Google Maps' new "Bicycling" option. This was the first time I've used it to plan an actual route I would use, rather than just playing around. I decided to go my usual way from Hartford to just south of Middletown (past the Big Hump), since Google suggested all sorts of different city streets and I wanted a more direct - and known-to-me - route. But in Higganum, CT, where I would have taken busy Rt. 81 south to Rts. 148 & 145, I decided to take Google's recommendation instead.
That decision proved to be both good and bad.
The good news is that, as advertised, Google will give you a route that favors bike routes, designated bike share roads, and less-heavily-traveled roads. Here's the route Google gave me, avoiding busy Rt. 81 and routing me through a state forest:
The bad news is that, even though I saw only a few cars (a very welcome respite from riding in city traffic and along highways), the road condition was pretty awful - all broken up and potholes everywhere. But, even worse, was this:
Heading through the park gave me LOTS of hills. In fact, they were steeper, higher, and more plentiful than any other part of my regular route. I can tell you, the legs were certainly burning. I usually can look forward to a relatively easy ride to the coast after The Middletown Hump, but not yesterday. And the road surface kept me from bombing any descents. It's always tough to have to go slow DOWNhill as well as up.
But it was a much more scenic, less-busy route. More of a pleasure to ride - if I wasn't in such a hurry.
You see, I got out of work a little later than planned and wanted to be sure to get to the shelter before the Mrs. started to worry. So I went, well, not as hard as I could (since I didn't know what to expect on the route), but pretty hard. My average HR for the ride was 158bpm (4 beats below LTHR). You can see from the profile that there was a lot of downhill at the end of the ride. Consequently, I actually went flying right by the shelter when I got to it! (I've never approached it from the north before) So, with the heat and the fact that there was no cool-down (I just went from HARD to STOP), I was feeling a little woozy.
Despite the temps and the hills, the ride was great until I stopped.
TIP: Be sure to have water/nutrition at the end of a ride - especially a hot, hard one.
Since home is my usual destination after these rides, I totally forgot I'd need to have the Mrs. pack some water & food for when I got to the shelter. Consequently, I ended up feeling the same way I did after I did my unintentional century, shortly after I first got my bike - nauseous and like I was going to pass out.
I recovered though, after I got to sit down a bit & cool down. And it helped to stick my head out the window like a dog when we drove from the shelter to the diner to eat (no, I didn't let my tongue hang out).
But the big Turkey Club sandwich (not to mention the Blizzard at DQ later on) helped even more.
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For those interested (even if only me, to document this), here's some data:
Hartford to Old Saybrook:
42 miles, 2hr 9min, 19.6avg, 1784', HR: 152/176
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/33035066
Hartford to Clinton:
41.27, 2hr 18min, 17.9avg, 2012', HR: 158/177 (burned over 2200 cals, so the Blizzard s/b no prob)
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