Ride, ride, ride

Ride - 26.12 miles, 1:40, 15.7 pace

I was soooo looking forward to getting in a good quality ride this week. When I squeeze in a ride on the weekends, it's always after the hubby gets home in the afternoon and it always cuts into our family time together. So, I can only pull off 30 minutes to an hour....not exactly what I'd call a "long ride". In fact, I think my longest ride since I started tri training has been 15 miles.

I took the kids to school and then couldn't decide if I should ride near home, or go to the far regions of The Woodlands where I rode with my running/tri peeps last year. In the end, not having to drive for 20 minutes won!

I started with my usual loop of the neighborhood. Remember all those nice roads with no homes yet? The roads with no traffic whatsoever? I had noticed the builder's "Available" signs on the lots about a month ago. Well, a couple of weeks ago I noticed three of the available signs replaced with "Sold" signs. This week I saw the wood frame of a new home....pretty soon there will be no unpopulated streets in the 'hood, sigh. It had to happen sometime!

Next, I got daring and rode outside the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the road is a busy one and I'm not sure how I like riding with card going 50+ mph as they pass me. Luckily, this road does have a wide shoulder...well, for awhile anyway. I turned into the subdivision next to ours...this is also where there are lots of unpopulated roads for the subdivision. I don't think I have to worry about houses being built here...the development opened a year ago and according to the newspaper, only one house has closed.

I headed back out to the busy street again and decided to head to the acreage community down the road. Oh crap...the shoulder ended and the 4-lane road turned into a 2-lane road! Scary! Luckily, I only had about a 1/4 mile to go. Once I was in this neighborhood I was good to go! There was a 6-7 mile loop with not much traffic and I also went down several other streets that went on for a couple of miles. I think I've found my new riding route!!! And, I passed great views of the neighborhood lake and there were tons of amazing homes to gawk at, lol!

I was going to go for a 2nd loop of that neighborhood when I suddenly realized the sky had that "it's about to pour any second" look to it. Instead, I decided to head toward my hood again...just in case there was lightening coming with that rain. Turns out that it didn't rain at all, so I finished up my ride with a few laps around the 'hood. Oh well.

So now I have a 26-miler under my belt. It was fun, but I definitely want to work on my speed. It's hard to do when there are stop signs, turns, etc, but I know I can do better. Oh, I did manage to drink from my water bottle while riding. And the legs felt like complete jello afterwards! Props to the folks who do twice that distance and run a 1/2 marathon afterwards...I don't know how you do it!