Yesterday's ride was my favourite ride this year. Of course out of the five that I've gone on that's not really saying all that much. Haha. Since it was on a Sunday it's a late start, which only got later because of the lightning storm. The weather reports said nothing about it... it was supposed to be blindingly hot and sunny. Geoff had watched the weather reports before leaving and even that said that there wasn't supposed to be any storm until 2pm.

After it let up a bit we got on our way. I was loaded with lots of energy before leaving. A bottle and a half of Gatorade, a bagel with olive oil (who needs or wants butter?), and some leftover chocolate bar. I love eating for long training rides.

The entire ride was a little wet and it was much chillier than expected, but it was still nice. I left behind the entire group while I waited for my GPSes to acquire signals, so I spent the first half catching and passing. I love getting the red mist in my eyes when I'm approaching from the rear. [ewww, shhhhh!!!]

I had caught up to Geoff at the first break in Kettleby, who appeared to be in front of the pack. Lunch was awesome at the Italian bakery. Veal sandwich with all kinds of vegetables on top, like two full potatoes of wedges, and a super sweet butter tart. Life doesn't get much better than that.

Looking at the logs it appears that I was pushing myself way too hard after Kettleby. Before the break my average heart rate was in the 150 range, but as soon as we hit Canal Rd., I pushed it up to 160. It's crazy how such a small difference in numbers made such a big difference in how tired I was. I was completely exhausted by the time I got out of Holland Marsh.

I caught up with Geoff again just before some big hills. I tried to keep up with him, with my heart rate back in the 150 range, but I couldn't for long. His light weight and better shape made him fly up the hills, so I laid off and finished the last 25k at my own pace with my heart rate almost consistently at 137.

It was an awesome ride overall, and I'm really starting to look forward to the next one on Saturday. Uxbridge was my first 100k ride back in high school, and it sounds like there's going to be another awesome barbeque waiting for us.

You can check out the stats and route of the ride yourself on Motionbased here.