Friday:  I slept in and worked from home.  My wife and I were heading down to the cape for the weekend.  I was hoping to squeeze in a workout, but a quick look at my meeting schedule dashed those hopes.  So, I took it as a rest day.

Saturday:  I decided I wanted to do a long bike ride.  From my house all the way to the beginning of the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  The weather was a little iffy.  The wind was howling last night, over 50mph at times, with some rain as well.  By this morning, the wind had calmed down a bit and the rain was gone.  It was still very gray, and the it was quite cool, around 48F.

You can see from the elevation that the ride is quite flat.  The only thing that breaks it up is frequent road crossings.  It starts with about a mile of walking and riding on sandy roads on the island, then the road firms up and you can start riding.  As I crossed the bridge from the island, my jury rigged mount for my iphone busted and my phone clattered to the pavement.  I stuffed it in my pants and rode the rest of way without any speed of heart rate feedback.  I join the rail trail at mile 21, and head south.  There was a ton of sticks, leaves, pine cones and other debris on the trail from the wind storm yesterday.  It made steering a bit interesting.

I tried to keep my cadence up.  Whenever I hit a hill, I downshifted to try to keep things light.  I don’t ride very often and I have very rarely gone this far.  I still wanted to get a good aerobic workout, but I didn’t want to cramp up 20 miles from home.

There was very little traffic on the trail, and I’m proud to say that I was not passed by a single cyclist.

Looks like I succeeded in terms of intensity.  An hour and a half of UT1, plus 45 minutes of UT2.  Total time on the road was over 3 hours, with about 2:50 of moving time.

The biggest challenge of the ride was arriving back at the island at high tide.  I had to carry my bike and wade through about half a mile of flooded road.  Man, the water was cold.  Here’s the view back across it after I was finished.  You can see the bridge off in the distance.  The water was 6 to 12″ deep all the way along the road.  I’ve never seen the tide that high.

After I finished wading, I had lost all feeling in my feet.  I got my socks and shoes back on and peddled slowly back to the house.

Wahoo fitness said it was a 2500 calorie bike ride.  I think that is probably about right.  It was pretty epic for me.

Tomorrow:  I will do an easy erg session in the evening when I get home from the cape.