Putting in the Miles

Springtime means longer rides as the weather warms up. My fitness wanes in the winter because it is harder to do long or hilly rides in the cold and dark of winter. This past winter my mileage count was pretty low so now I'm trying to put in the miles to start building a base for this season. 

The weather has made getting out a bit harder this year. We have had a lot of rain on the weekends and on my Wednesdays off. However I did get two good rides in this week. This past Wednesday was a raw cloudy day in the mid 40s but there was not much wind and no rain in the forecast so I did a 34 mile ride from home to the roads around the Manasquan Reservoir. The route has about 1000 ft of climbing. There are no real hills but some rollers to test out my climbing legs a little. This raw weather made the ride less enjoyable than normal but these are the rides you have to do to try and get in shape for the season. I came in at a decent pace, faster than I did a few weeks ago so I am happy I'm getting better.

This past Saturday the hilly ride that was on the PFW calendar was beyond my current ability so I did my own ride and invited Jim and Jack to come along. It was a windy day in the mid 50s. My goal for the day was to do at least 40 miles. I put a route together that started in Etra Park to Jamesburg and back. I wanted to do a more north-south route since the wind was mostly coming from the west. The first few miles were tough as we headed directly into the wind for the first 7 miles or so. After that it wasn't too bad as we made our way through Plainsoro and on towards Dayton. 

On Riva Rd I changed the route to go a little farther along the river. This also put us on better roads to go through Hemetta an on to Jamesburg. In Jamesburg we stopped at a coffee shop for a break and then headed back. We went through Thomson Park which has one short but steep little hill through the park to up to the main road to head back to Etra. My legs were tired at the end of the ride but I was able to do a 43 mile ride at a decent pace. I still need to put a lot more miles in to be back to full strength but am improving which is all the matters.