I don’t think I’ve had a week with this much mileage since I moved to Portland, since so many of my rides now are in-city rides and I usually only ride a few days a week.
This week, after taking Monday off (horrid weather and luckily I didn’t need the bike), I rode about 10 miles on Tuesday, five miles on Wednesday, seven miles on Thursday, and five on Friday. Saturday I rode another ten. All of those days it rained at least some, although not always on me as I was riding.
Today I rode about 37. The fact that today totally wiped me out is on one level a little disappointing, considering that a day in the range of 35 miles with a chunk of climbing used to be totally do-able without creating that kind of exhaustion (the kind where I just want to climb into bed). One of my favorite long rides in the Bay Area was one I used to do for training that was 34 miles with almost 2000 ft total climbing.
On the other hand, I haven’t been riding much, so the fact that I was able to do today, after a week of regular mileage (37 miles), and still on the tail end of a cold, is pretty good.
My adventures this week were to a friends’ house in NE (~5 miles each way, up the Broadway Bridge and Williams to Dekum); to work and downtown for an appointment (~2 mi each way down to SW Stark and 3rd); to work, PSU, and SE Portland (1, 2, and 4 miles); back from SE Portland and to home (4 miles and 1 mile); to NE to have brunch (6 miles) and then down to SE (4 miles).
Then today, back from SE; downtown, back to SE, and way, way far out to Gresham, then north almost to I-84 (Halsey) and out on the Columbia River Highway to Dabney State Recreation Area. The return trip, we went up Stark, which I had no idea even existed way out there. Eventually in Gresham we picked up the MAX and took a shorter trip back, to the great relief of my tired legs. (The total climbing for today was 1800 ft just for the trip from home to Dabney and back to MAX, so really not too much different from my big old training ride back in the Bay Area.) The weather was chilly but cleared up after noon and the sun coming through the trees by the river was quite beautiful.
A stop at Vanh Hanh Vegetarian Restaurant (SE 82nd & Division, near the MAX Green Line Divison stop) yielded tasty Vietnamese vegetarian food to fuel me for the MAX trip and short ride back home. Yum!
Taking the new MAX Green Line was also fun. I was excited to get off at the new stop on Glisan and just roll up Glisan to get home (switching to Johnson at 14th).