Great Ride!

I had planned to ride about 75K today. I have a race next weekend and wanted to get a longer ride in this week because next weekend's race is rather short. I wasn't sure who was going to show up for the ride as many people are up in Peterborough for the race tomorrow. In the end, I rode with my dear friend JD and another friend of his. It was so nice to ride a new route and to have someone else plan the route for a change. He said that we were going to ride for 3 hours, which is what I had hoped to do, so it was perfect.

We ended up riding all the way up to the Holland Marsh, which is this beautiful piece of rich, dark, land where there are vegetable farms as far as the eye can see. The route was lovely as we had some rolling hills and a fairly shady route, which was nice. On the way back, we took an unfamiliar road, which ended up turning into dirt. We figured it would be OK for a short time as long as there weren't any big hills. Finally, the road turned back to pavement but it was a mixed blessing as there was this HUGE winding hill in front of us. JD's bike computer said that it was a 16% grade, which is just NASTY! I struggled to the top and got my HR up to 170 (my max on the bike is 177), so I was pushing hard. After a second steep climb, we were rewarded with a lovely long downhill that I just hammered. In the end, we actually covered just over 80K in 3:22 riding time, so that was perfect.

Towards the end of the ride I started to develop a stitch in my side that was quite painful. Normally, I would run after my ride but the stitch was still there, so I decided not to.

We then went to Tim's for coffee and bagels, which was great. I took a nice long shower as soon as I got home and now I'm just vegging on the couch.

I have to go out shortly to buy a new cell phone as mine ended up going through the wash the other night. Aaargh! I think it's dried out enough that I'll be able to retrieve the key phone numbers, but I'll need a whole new phone as I tried actually using the phone to make a call and it went all wonky. Drats!

I don't really have any plans for this evening. I have to get up early and be on the road by 6AM because I'm driving up to Peterborough tomorrow morning to watch my friends race. After the race, I'm invited to a BBQ at a friend's place whose parents live up there.

I'm just finishing up watching today's stage of the Tour on tape from this morning. It's the first mountain stage, so it should be good. Tomorrow's will be even better!