Sunday ride in Oconomowoc

Yesterday (Sunday, 5/20), I had the pleasure of linking up and going out on a long bike ride with an old friend I used to work with back at Metavante. Her name is Leslie and we've kept in touch over the years and met up at different races.  Coincidentally, we both signed up for our first Ironman this year.  Leslie is a competitive age grouper and an extremely experienced and accomplished endurance athlete. Heck, she qualifies for Boston every time she runs a marathon and I know she will do very well in Ironman.  We decided early this year that we would have to go on some rides together and Sunday worked perfectly into both our schedules.

Drove out to her place in Oconomowoc where we decided to ride about 50 miles all over Lake Country and the surrounding rural areas.  Here were the details of our ride.....

We started by riding out a couple miles and met up with Leslie's friend, Fran who happens to be doing Ironman Coeur d'Alene at the end of June (yikes....like 30 days).   Fran was planning on riding the 50 with us and then finishing up with another 30 solo.  80 mile rides are what I have to look forward to in the not-so-distant future!

Anyway, our ride was pretty enjoyable.  It was tougher than I thought mainly because there were long stretches into a headwind that also seemed to coincide with some nice hills.  Overall I really liked the terrain and the quietness of the countryside.  We did start this ride at 7am on a Sunday, so I wouldn't expect to see too many cars, but it seemed like in the first two hours we only saw 3-4 cars on these rural roads.  It was a very pleasant change from my typical routes in the suburbs where cars are all over the place.  I also found it interesting how many cities we rode through that I had never hear of such as Ashippun, Pipersville, Farmington, & Concord.

Although this was only a 3 hour ride, I was also to continue an experimentation I've been doing with getting my nutrition out of a bottle instead of having to worry about lugging around gels and other types of foods on the bike.  I've been using Perpetuem in the form of a single bottle that provides my required 200 calories an hour (for 4 hours).  It worked well for me and I was never hungry nor did I experience any stomach issues of any kind.  The only issue I had is that I need to carry a bit more regular water for hydration purposes.  Now that I am using one full bottle for nutrition, it means I only have 1 bottle for water, which on a hot day like today, it wasn't enough.  In the future on these rides I will need to also use my aero bottle so that I have plenty of drinking fluids.

To summarize Sunday was a very good ride with a couple of very strong cyclists.  Rides with these types of people, can only make me better.  Here is Leslie and I at the end of our 50 miles.  I look tired, but I am not sure she broke a sweat.....