Thursday.

My ride yesterday ended up being another 100.  I managed to pound it out pretty quickly, 20.5 average/106 miles/5 hrs 10 minutes, but the first 2+ hours were so long.  I'm guessing it's because I was pushing the pace into a headwind and the route I took was essentially 3-4 very long roads...not many turns.  Once I did make the turn North and eventually East the tailwind lifted spirits.  The sun appeared about this time too, hello friend.  

I'm happy with how my legs and body are responding to a week with more miles and saddle time.  While I've ridding a lot not much of it (if any) has been incredibly hard, like TNR, making recovery much easier.  I've also been consciously staying on top of my hydration, both on the ride and after.  I'm entering 6 months of my no meat, mostly plant based, experiment.  I do think when I'm lazy about recovery food/drink I take longer to bounce back.  Lately I've been better at getting food/drink into my system within the first 30 minutes of completing a ride.  Seems to be helping.  While I believe it's more than possible to get enough protein from plants it's not always the easiest.  So recently I've added a scoop of Hammer Vegan Protein to my recover shake.  Which also seems to help...or placebo, but thus far I give it a thumbs up.  Now if I can just work on my sweet tooth I'd actually drop some weight!

I'm pretty sure the decision has been made to go to Jen's parent's cabin this weekend.  Which means I get to ride North!  Bonus...south wind predicted!  I've readied the Evergreen.  Hoping to find some new routes, off the beaten path.  Fingers crossed the thunderstorms miss us.

Happy Weekend.