Orting Trail Ride - 05/19/07

Ride on Saturday morning:

Location: Sumner, Pierce, Washington, United States
Activity: Road Biking
Distance: 29.44 (mi)

Today I was able to connect with Chuck at the Meeker trail head and we waited for Brandon and Steve who were riding from the Auburn super mall. They showed up a little after 8:30 and we all headed out. Having only arrived home at 1AM this morning, I was a bit tired. I really felt the first 5 miles or so until my legs got sufficiently warm. After that we settled into a nice little groove. The "hill" at just under 10 miles isn't very big, and certainly isn't very long. But man my legs are just not conditioned for hills. Not that I had to walk it or anything, but looking at my Garmin, my heart rate shot up to 170 bpm. I thought I might stroke out or something. OK, not really, but after the hill, I slowed down to about 12 MPH to catch my breath and then kicked it up a notch (BAM!) to catch back up with the group. We stopped in South Prairie for about 25 minutes to rehydrate and refuel. Then it was back down. We hit 27 - 28 MPH a couple times on the way back. With about 4 miles to go, I looked at my Garmin and realized we had a shot at getting back to the Meeker trail head in just under 2 hours. I mentioned this to the group and the pace quickened a bit. At about mile 26, I pulled in behind Steve for a little drafting action and we kicked it up to about 25 for a bit. That was cool. According to my Garmin, when we hit the Meeker trail head, we were at 1:59:11 . . . WOO HOO! Last week, riding the route alone, I did it in 2:06:29 . . . so shaved about 7 minutes off my time. Not too shabby! I'm good with that! Anyway, here's a link to the ride.

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