It was maybe a year ago when I was doing at least one 50 miler every week to keep the weekly miles over 100, and it wasn't that big a deal. This year though I just never got started with riding in the spring, never mind on the trainer in the winter. I did 35 miles on a ride last week and felt depleted afterwards so I thought that maybe 50 miles wasn't in the cards anymore. I'm 66 now and it is just harder to start working myself into shape. That said, even at 63 I was still kicking ass, stronger than ever, faster than ever and a better climber too. It went downhill pretty fast.
So my ride today was the 50 mile Tour de Brooklyn that I mapped out. You never leave the borough of Brooklyn, there is no doubling back anywhere, just a big circle. The first 25 miles are mostly on a mostly uninterrupted bike path along the Belt Parkway and I usually take that at a decent clip, I was doing a steady 23 on the firsts section and slowed it down to about 19 on the second part with the bridges. The rest of the ride is in the streets with bike lanes, a lot of stop and go for the traffic. At any point in the ride I can turn towards home and it is never more than 7 miles from where I am. It is the hub to the wheel's rim that I'm riding. At about 35 miles I got tempted but persevered and did the whole thing.
