Ocean City and more

This Ride: 59.3 miles
Kona Distance: 4,263.2 miles
Month to date: 453.2 miles
2010 Total: 4,749.7 miles
Pace to 5,254.8 mile goal in 2010: (385.3 miles ahead of goal pace)

I’m attending a retreat for “rostered leaders” (pastors and other professional church leaders) of the Delaware Maryland Synod of the ELCA Sunday evening through Tuesday afternoon.  Part of the schedule is “open time” Monday afternoon.  What better way to spend “open time” than riding bike?  So I took off around 1:00 pm today and rode a planned 60 mile (roughly) route.

The Eastern Shore of Maryland is flat, flat, flat, which accounts for fast, fast, fast except for headwind, headwind, headwind.  Luckily today, the winds were relatively light.  I rode the planned route, and it will make sense as I describe it.

The one variable I didn’t plan very well for was nutrition.  I wanted to get on the road, so I didn’t eat lunch (not wanting to have all that sitting in my belly digesting as I started).  That probably impacted the last part of the ride.

So I headed north from the hotel along Coastal Highway toward Rehoboth Beach.  Since I was in the northern part of Ocean City, I had very few traffic lights and was able to cruise at a pretty good clip, with occasional ocean views to the east.  While riding the in Delaware Seashore State Park, I started noticing many dead and “resting” monarch butterflies, and several dead small songbirds.  I suppose the dead ones are casualties of the annual migration.  I’ve heard about the butterfly migration crossing from Cape May to Lewes, Delaware and would like to witness it sometime.  Unfortunately, this is not the trip.  The one major hill you see on the elevation graph is a bridge.

Highway 1 through Rehoboth Beach and past the outlet malls was very congested and there was some road work being done also, so I had to gingerly negotiate all that.  On the bike, I passed a lot of people who had to merge into one lane, and had courteous drivers who gave me plenty of room.  There was always a bike lane while I was in Delaware, which I really appreciated.

I turned off Highway 1 at Highway 24 to make my way south.  Once I turned south, it seemed like I had the wind to my back, and the pace quickened considerably.  I wanted to go by Baywood Greens, the golf course where my youngest daughter will be married June 5.  I reached it near mile 31, and stopped to take a photo.  I texted her the photo and asked if she knew where I was with the bike.  It didn’t take her long to respond, and she recognized the entrance.  While taking the photo, I consumed a Hammer Gel pack, the first food I had eaten since the fig newtons I had at the start of the ride (which made up my lunch), and within 2 miles, stopped in a Royal Farms and bought a banana and a Snickers bar.  These would be the only food items consumed during the ride.

After the stop at Baywoods, I frequently stopped to check the map on my iPhone to make sure I was progressing with the planned route.  I did not print a cue sheet, and only had a rough idea about where I was going without referencing the map.  I find I’m not quite as fast when I don’t know exactly where I am going.  While on the county roads, I had to put up with about a dozen chicken farms.  The awful odor was rivaled only by the 3 road kill skunks, the one road kill fox, and one road kill deer I passed along the same county roads.  I also passed the Mountain Farms Chicken processing plant near Millsboro.  That was the longest stretch of unbreathable air on the whole ride.  It was when I turned southeast just after Millsboro when I hit the headwinds, which took a bit off my speed (in addition to fatigue and limited nutritional stores).  If you look at my speed graphs, you can see the change quite clearly.  I got a little chilly as the headwinds picked up and the temperature dropped.  I was glad I had carried my wind vest with me, and put it on against the chill.  I wish now that I had packed my shoe covers.  My feet got a bit cold as the sun dropped lower in the sky.

I was ready to be done somewhere around mile 45-50, but had committed to a longer ride.  I stopped just a couple miles from the hotel, once I hit the Maryland state line again, just to rest my legs for a few minutes, then pressed on back to the hotel.  That shower felt pretty good, and helped to warm me up.

I was glad I didn’t plan a longer ride.  This was enough.  I missed having people around.  This was a nice fast solo pace.  In fact, I’ve only had one solo ride faster, and that was a 22 mile ride.  Flat can make for a fast ride.