Longest ride to date.

I got out for a 55 mile ride on Thursday, my longest ride to date. It was awesome! Beautiful weather, great scenery, and just a good amount of uninterrupted time on the bike. I felt like I could have gone another 20 to 30 miles, so I'm pleased with my progress thus far. It's only April and I'm feeling pretty good on the bike. Still lots of work to do, but we're on track.

In addition to Thursday's monster ride, I got out yesterday for a quick 22 mile ride to keep the legs spinning. No strenuous effort, just a nice pace to keep things moving.

It is now Saturday morning and I'm getting ready to head out for a ride with Brian, one of the doctor's I work with. We're headed out in his neck of the woods, a great area that should provide a nice ride for us. Not sure how long we'll go, it will depend on how we both feel and as always, time constraints. I love riding with other people, it makes for a nice change of pace as conversation is always welcome. Speaking of riding with other people, I met up with a member of the Penn State Cycling Team on Thursday. I was in the home stretch of the ride when he pulled up next to me and asked if he could ride with me for a while. Of course I said yes, and we rode for about 10 miles talking about cycling and random other stuff. It turns out there is a group ride Wednesday evenings not far from my house. Apparently this ride draws quite a crowd, with some Cat 1 pros, right on down to cat 5's. From what he said, it's a pretty fierce pace, with people dropping off when they can't maintain the group speed any longer. I won't lie, this peaked my interest when he mentioned it...because...well...yeah...I'm kind of competitive and am always up for a challenge. :-) Even if I can only hold the pace for 1 or 2 miles, I want to see what it's like...so I think I'm headed out with them next Wednesday. I'll certainly report back after that experience...it should be interesting.

Ok, I'm off to get ready for my ride.

Peace!