40 Miles... Down.

Today we set out on our 2nd week of training. According to our training log, we were supposed to bike a good 35 miles today. We instead ended up going closer to 40 miles, which I don't have a problem with. When given the option of going well over or well under the predetermined mileage, I will always take the over. That's what I did when developing this week's route.

Ben and I both felt great today. We made great time (About 3 1/2 hours of actual riding time to cover about 39 miles worth of road), and it's nice to feel like progress is actually being made. Last week was our first ride, and I didn't really have any sense of accomplishment. But considering we biked almost 40 miles this week compared to the 24 miles we biked last week, I really feel as though things are happening... That we are actually improving on where we've already been.

One thing that I've been noticing (digression alert) that I find mildly humorous... We tend to ride down a lot of roads that are home to extremely wealthy people. I mean like super rich; The Washington DC metro regional area is home to some of the most astronomically expensive real estate prices in the country, and we're driving by places with acres of land and giant equestrian pens. These bitches be rich. So anyway, I noticed on 3 separate occasions today (and I have noticed this in the past when I've been biking) homes that have both Hummers/Excursions/Giant Gas Guzzling SUVs and tiny hybrid cars (mainly a Prius) in the driveways. I don't want to make this blog into some obnoxious political thing, but let's just say I find that to be extremely funny, and surprisingly common among the elite upper class around this area.

One other thing, that's slightly less amusing, but may be slightly more interesting. Today we saw a fox. It was a regular red fox, nothing too special, except for the fact that this was found really close to Wisconsin Ave. in Bethesda, a super busy road populated by a lot of weekend foot and car traffic. This on it's own is a strange occurrence. When you take into account the fact that last year while training for a different century ride (didn't happen, broke my collarbone) I saw a spider monkey (this actually happened, maybe I'll write about it later in the blog... That's called a teaser!), these become two very strange sightings.

We're getting stronger. The century ride is still a ways away, but I feel as though every day that we ride, the reality of the century race becomes clearer... Things are definitely happening.