The last long bike ride before my Metric Century was a success! 🙂
Kelly and I drove about 45 miles southwest of Orlando to the Van Fleet State Trail, which is about 30-miles long in total.
It was an amazing trail — long, straight, shaded, and flat. It’s in a rural area so there were basically no cars. It was a cyclist’s dream!
All in all, I thought 40 miles was fun and challenging, but I definitely felt it was do-able and feel very confident about my Metric Century (64 miles!).
This was also the longest bike ride Kelly has ever done!
One good aspect about this ride was that it really helped me understand how I need to fuel for the Metric Century. I need to eat a really big breakfast, take tons of goo, and actually eat solid food during the ride. I didn’t eat anything solid on this ride and I definitely began to feel HUNGRY by the end even though I consumed about 400 calories in goo.
I started off with a Clif Shot (strawberry flavor). This is about 90 calories. I really like Clif Shots and prefer them to Hammer.
Then we reached the halfway point at Mile 20.0!
We took a break and I ate a whole pack of Clif Shot Bloks, which is about 200 calories.
And around mile 35, I tried a Hammer goo in orange flavor (also 90 calories). Again, it was good, but I just prefer the organic Clif Shots.
We saw lots of cool animals on our ride! I found a baby turtle in the road:
He’s my little friend! :) We saw several big turtles, too:
And Kelly found a big GATOR!
Eckkkkk! 🙂
I got to try a new piece of biking gear today as well! Aerotech Designs Cyclewear sent me a new pair of their super-padded gel gloves to try.
These gloves are actually a new design that I don’t think are available for sale on their website, but they are similar to this product.
I have to say that I am very impressed with Aerotech Designs Cyclewear. They are the same company that makes my bike shorts (a pair of which Kelly borrowed and said felt amazing!) and the gloves are just as high-quality as the shorts. My wrists did not get sore, and I felt like the gloves provided great gripe.
Another amazing Aerotech Designs Cyclewear product! I highly recommend them.
After our ride, we drove back to my house, and I made us a wonderful and simple lunch to help us re-fuel.
I used Anne’s Organic Mac and Cheese sauce, but I fixed it with whole wheat pasta. I had about 1.5 serving. Plus, some steamed broc on the side. Yum!
- Duration: 3 hours, 30 minutes
- Distance: 40 miles
- Calories Burned: 1,500 – 1,600 (estimate)
Time to EAT SOME MORE! 🙂
I just got back from my 40 mile ride! We saw turtles too, but thankfully NO Gators!!
I have learned that a 40 mile bike ride HURTS if you don’t have bike shorts! So glad you had a good ride 🙂