Broke out the bike and dusted it off!

Today was the day I had planned to break out the bike and head out for my first ride since my last triathlon back in June of 2008. So how do I break it in? I go for a 50 miler! I haven't done a 50 miler since I was in Jr. High and our Pathfinders (think boy scouts done through a church group) would do these Bike-A-Thons where we would get sponsors and then ride 50 miles to raise money for our group so we could go on campouts.

We have a really good bike path that runs from Corona where I live all the way to the beach around Huntington (about 60 miles one way). If I park down where the bike path starts then there is no street lights to stop for or vehicle traffic, just a straight shot with a couple bridges to cross over the riverbed but that's it. Anyway, my plan today was to do about 50 miles so I headed out from my house which gave me about 11 miles of hills before I reached the flat bike trail. I wastn't sure that I was going to takle the hills on the back end of my ride or call my wife to come pick me up at the bike trail.

Before I go any further about my ride I need to note that not only did I have to dust off my bike but I also had some rust when it came to preparing for my ride and a couple mistakes on the ride itself. First of all, I was all ready to head out the door when I noticed that my Garmin was almost out of battery. Do I take off without it or wait an hour or so for it to charge up? I wait! Instead of taking off by 10am I end up getting out the door closer to noon.

The first half of my ride went well, but it was here where I encountered my 2nd mistake and this one was a mental mistake. I had convinced myself the whole time I was heading out on my out and back course that I was heading into a slight headwind. I was averaging about 18mph and I just figured that if there wasn't a headwind I would be doing closer to 20mph. When I reached the turn-around point about 29 miles into my ride I noticed that I now was heading back into a pretty steady headwind. On the flat trail I was averaging about 15mph and getting pretty frustraded with myself.

My third mistake came after I called my wife at the turn-around. I stopped my Garmin and no I didn't have it set for Auto-stop/start. I forgot to start it back up when I started up again and didn't notice it for about 5-6 miles. So now add the frustration that I'm not going to get an accurate measurement of this ride.

My legs started aching about 40 miles into the ride and was wondering if my calf was going to cramp up on me. My butt was starting to numb up and I was seeing my speed drop down into the 12-13mph range. I finish the ride and my wife was there waiting for me and my numbers looked like this. 47 miles in about 3 hours which gave me an average of about 15.5mph. My HR averaged 157 bpm.

I guess you could say that my last mistake was heading out for a 50 mile ride after 6 months with my bike parked in the garage. On the other had, I made it and my time was only about 20-25 minutes more than I was hoping I would do. My legs feel fine, my butt might be sore for another day but all in all I'm grateful that I got my first ride back out of the way.