Toddling

The ride

My best post-recovery ride. The sort of ride that makes me stop and remember, oh right, that’s what it’s all about.

A very nice 60 miler. I fueled and drank well, and set an average pace of ~14.5mph. It felt so nice. My body was comfortable, and everything seemed to click.

I ended up in rural Mass, enjoying the time pedaling by a low stone wall, a sun-drenched field of corn on the other side. Then later, canopied road after road, solitary, green and dappled light.

I very much enjoyed the trails I got to ride on, from parts of the emerald necklace to the Mass Central Rail Trail (arguably my favorite trail in the area), to the river trail up into Harvard on the way back.

Nominal

• Caffeine. I had small amounts of caffeine spaced out regularly throughout the entire ride. Namely, in the form of cliff bloks. I think this … maybe helped?
• Rice blocks. Back in the groove of things, I made rice blocks last night, and they were perfect for keeping my satiated. My energy level throughout the ride was great.
• Carb loading. While I’m not quite sure what the latest consensus is among health experts, anecdotally, the large amount of mac & cheese I had last night also seemed to help.
• The route. I played around with the route for a while last night to get in a few different trails that I wanted to visit. The end result exceeded expectations. Ya know that delightful time before when GPS’s were good when you were in junior high and you crammed into a mini-van with your brother and a bunch of his friends, drove to Florida to go to a Star Wars convention, spent way too much of your non-existent money on a wedge salad (can we all that wedge salads are the worst kinds of salads and should be outlawed?) and then afterwards ended up driving back through the far end of this abandoned Target parking lot because the GPS decided that was the fastest way to go? Right. Well, the route-planning software sometimes has that same vibe where suddenly, I turn down this road that I’m thinking might be / probably is a driveway and it’s all gravel and it keeps going and then it opens up and that looks like a … big industrial flower shop? and that’s a one-way roundabout at the flower shop? and then it continues to open up and there’s a stop light? which I cross, get on the sidewalk, which turns into a … really nice bike trail? Magical. Simply magical.
• Blinky tail-light. I used an aggressively blinky tail-light. Cars gave me lots of room.

Off nominal

N/a

The route