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04-13-08, 06:14 PM
As anyone who was around Seattle yesterday knows, it was just a beautiful day. By far the best we've had so far this year. I'd been thinking about doing a century, so since I had to meet up with a friend of mine and give him back some stuff I'd borrowed, I decided to go ahead and go for it. My only regrets are that I got a little lost on the way back, and I forgot my sunscreen.
Since this was going to be my first really long ride since last September, and the first long ride since I bought my recumbent, I decided to go for a pretty flat ride. Most of you probably know that the Seattle Bicycle Touring Club has an on-line route library, complete with cue sheets, so I choose the Tukwila-South Prairie Flat route (cue sheet here (http://www.seattlebiketours.org/members/maps/tukwila_south_prairie_flat.pdf)). That's an 88-mile ride, so I threw in a trip from Renton up through Boeing Field and back down to Tukwila before I started.
The route takes you down the Green River trail to the end, where it joins the Interurban trail. You take that to the end, then use the cue sheet to get you through Sumner to the Foothills trail. You get on that and go through Orting down to South Prairie, where you turn around at a very nice park. Orting was having a Daffodil parade, so there were lots of people and booths and stuff around.
Coming back on the Foothills trail, I apparently missed the turnoff to get back to Orting, because I found myself at the end of the trail near Puyallup. I wandered around Puyallup for a while until I found a road I recognized. Unfortunately, this road was the one that takes you from Puyallup to Edgewood. For those of you not familiar, this means a climb. And by a climb, I mean a road where there's a slow truck lane. I'm proud to say that, even though I went all the way down to Granny and was huffing and puffing hard by the time I got to the top, I didn't stop and didn't walk. Once at the top, I did stop to let my heart rate return to something less than infinity :) and get some drink, but I made the trip up the hill!
Once in Edgewood, I went down the hill back into Sumner. I wandered around there for a bit until I got to Auburn. I talked to a very nice guard at the Boeing facility there who had absolutely no idea where the Interurban trail was :p. Anyway, after a while I found the trail again and followed it back up to the Green River trail and finally back to the parking lot where I left the van.
All in all, it felt pretty good, even if it was a little slow. By the time I finished, my legs were getting pretty sore. I cracked a rib on Thursday, but it didn't really bother me much unless I took a really deep breath.
Final stats:
Total Distance: 109.93 miles
Average Speed: 12.3 MPH
Riding Time: just under 9 hours
Total Time: 10.5 hours
Max HR: 151
Average HR: 123
Food: 2 PB&J sandwiches, 2 bananas
Drink: 3 Celsius energy drinks, 3 quarts Cherry kool-aid, 1 quart water
Pics attached.
Since this was going to be my first really long ride since last September, and the first long ride since I bought my recumbent, I decided to go for a pretty flat ride. Most of you probably know that the Seattle Bicycle Touring Club has an on-line route library, complete with cue sheets, so I choose the Tukwila-South Prairie Flat route (cue sheet here (http://www.seattlebiketours.org/members/maps/tukwila_south_prairie_flat.pdf)). That's an 88-mile ride, so I threw in a trip from Renton up through Boeing Field and back down to Tukwila before I started.
The route takes you down the Green River trail to the end, where it joins the Interurban trail. You take that to the end, then use the cue sheet to get you through Sumner to the Foothills trail. You get on that and go through Orting down to South Prairie, where you turn around at a very nice park. Orting was having a Daffodil parade, so there were lots of people and booths and stuff around.
Coming back on the Foothills trail, I apparently missed the turnoff to get back to Orting, because I found myself at the end of the trail near Puyallup. I wandered around Puyallup for a while until I found a road I recognized. Unfortunately, this road was the one that takes you from Puyallup to Edgewood. For those of you not familiar, this means a climb. And by a climb, I mean a road where there's a slow truck lane. I'm proud to say that, even though I went all the way down to Granny and was huffing and puffing hard by the time I got to the top, I didn't stop and didn't walk. Once at the top, I did stop to let my heart rate return to something less than infinity :) and get some drink, but I made the trip up the hill!
Once in Edgewood, I went down the hill back into Sumner. I wandered around there for a bit until I got to Auburn. I talked to a very nice guard at the Boeing facility there who had absolutely no idea where the Interurban trail was :p. Anyway, after a while I found the trail again and followed it back up to the Green River trail and finally back to the parking lot where I left the van.
All in all, it felt pretty good, even if it was a little slow. By the time I finished, my legs were getting pretty sore. I cracked a rib on Thursday, but it didn't really bother me much unless I took a really deep breath.
Final stats:
Total Distance: 109.93 miles
Average Speed: 12.3 MPH
Riding Time: just under 9 hours
Total Time: 10.5 hours
Max HR: 151
Average HR: 123
Food: 2 PB&J sandwiches, 2 bananas
Drink: 3 Celsius energy drinks, 3 quarts Cherry kool-aid, 1 quart water
Pics attached.