115th ride - 9/26/2015

This morning's ride was a big one, as I did four consecutive round trips to Marsh Park for only the second time (the other being on August 1). This 33.5 miles is the longest ride I have done on my trike. I had set the goal of doing five consecutive round trips by the end of summer, but missed that—however, I am still hopeful of making it by the end of October.

I set out in solid darkness this morning, at 6:30, with my headlight securely flashing (I left it on for an hour and a half), and was hoping to better my earlier time of 3:45. But the time ended up being a moving target. With the adjustments that were made to my trike yesterday at Jack's, it rides easier, so by the end of the first round trip, it was light enough to see my watch, and I could see that 3:45 was too modest a goal, so I reset my sights on 3:40. As I continued to ride, and continued to better my expectations, I kept readjusting my goal, until by the start of the fourth and final round trip, I was hoping to make 3:30 (or maybe even 3:25)—and when I pulled into our driveway at the conclusion, I was delighted to see 3:17:47 on my watch!

The reason for my goal of 5 is because of a big ride I'm doing next spring. Every year since 1978, on the first Sunday of May riders have congregated to do what they call the Five Boro Tour, because it goes through all five boroughs of New York City. (They close the streets to traffic for it.) That first one, 37 years ago, had 50 riders—but it grew steadily until a few years ago, when they capped it at 32,000 riders. After beginning near Wall Street at the southern tip of Manhattan, the route heads north, and through Central Park, and eventually comes back down to finish across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and onto Staten Island.

When it opened in 1964, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was the world's longest suspension span. The ends of the bridge are at historic Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn and Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island.

I became friends with Eric and Mari Veenstra this year, who were teammates of mine on the mission trip we did to Haiti in April. They have done the ride in the past, and planned to go out for next year's and offered me a ride out with them. I felt I could hardly neglect this extremely kind offer.

At any rate, that ride next May 1 is 40 miles, so to assure myself that I can do it, I want to have 40 miles done OK here in Michigan. And five consecutive Marsh Park round trips will be 41.5 miles. I could have done it this morning, I believe, but decided to wait and let the anticipation continue to build.