Little disappointed but still a good ride.
I had planned on finishing August off with another milestone ride. There is a local road that runs along a creek for about 20 miles and usually has very little traffic. My plan was to ride the 20 miles up stream then 20 back for a new personal best 40 mile ride. I really didn't think that it would be a hard ride because while it is uphill going upstream it is only about a 2% grade. Well I was wrong, At about the 11 mile mark my legs were starting to really feel the sting and even when I went to easier gears it wouldn't go away. My speed started dropping off and my legs just felt like lead. I stopped for a little bit and had to decide weather I would try to push on or turn around short of my goal. Since I still had to do the return ride and felt like my tank was empty I thought it best to turn around. I had made it about 13 miles out, but just didn't think I had enough left to make it to 20. The return ride was much easier and went by quicker than I expected, my legs even got to feeling better by the end of the ride. All told I still did a personal best of just over 25 miles but was very disappointed in my lack of fitness. When I got home I got to looking at my training log and realized that due to life getting in the way I really hadn't done many long rides last month and just hadn't conditioned myself for the longer ride. So this month I am going to try do some interval training at least one day a week and work on increasing my daily mileage. At least now I have a new goal, I will do that 40 mile trip before winter gets here.