9.9mi

Tonight was a big night. Tonight was the night I hit 450 miles, and finished up my Katy Trail Challenge. Woo-hoo!

I thought I was gonna get washed out again, as the rains built and fell during lunch. However, by ride time, the rain had abated, and the atmosphere had cooled. Unfortunately, my riding partners were unable to make it tonight. That left me alone tonight, attempting to dispatch the challenge.

The ride was quiet, with the trail having dried up a bit from last night’s ride, but the air was still thick and humid. Fortunately, the sun hadn’t come out, so the evaporation from the ground to my lungs wasn’t too bad. Still, it made for a tough go, and without the company of my partners to egg me on, I was done after ten miles.

Still, ten miles was enough to finish off my 450 miles, and that was the goal for tonight! In looking at my trail map, I took about six weeks to do the first half, and about three weeks to do the second half. I’m proud of that progress, and sure hope for more success on the trail through the rest of the year.

So what’s next?

I’m gonna try to extend my weekend rides to 30 miles and beyond. The weeknight rides will have to stay around 15-20 miles, and probably drop back to ten miles as fall sets in — just not enough daylight after work to get a long ride in. Weekends though are another story, and I’m sure I’ll be working on my longer distance endurance then.

As for my mileage total, I’m shooting for 1000 miles before the end of the year. I figure there’s about eleven weeks of good solid riding left, and that works out to about 55 miles a week — a figure I’ve been surpassing over the last month. More than that would be gravy.

I know I’m not ready this year, but next year, I wanna be poised for one of the cross-state Katy Trail rides. Missouri DNR has their annual in June, but there are private outfitters that sponsor trips in September and October, and I think those would be more to my liking, and would supply plenty of photographic material.

So here’s to a very cool accomplishment, and a nice long road ahead of me!

click on the map to enlarge