First 11 Miles of the Year

In Northeast Wisconsin, it generally is not warm enough to start riding until about mid-March. We did have a couple of days of mid 40's about 10 days ago, but I was not able to get out of work. And then a major snowstorm dropped 14 more inches of snow on Appleton. So between not really being warm enough and waiting for the snow to melt, it just seems like mid march is the best you can hope to do.

However, I am ready to be outside. And I am ready to do something. Enough snow has melted so that the roads are pretty much dry. It was 27 degrees today, so cold, real cold, but I figured I could tough it out for a while. And that is exactly what I did. Face was cold, fingers got real cold for a while, felt cold when I got home, but I fought through it. Ended up doing 11.7 miles. Nothing great, but it was nice to get outside and get some fresh (cold) air. I probably could have done a couple more miles, but it was pretty cold and I was happy to get home.

It looks like the high on Tuesday will be 38 degrees and then 38 degrees again on Friday, so I am going to try to get out in the late afternoon a couple of times this week. I'm not expecting anything big, just try to get in some 16-20 mile rides so I can start rebuilding some sort of fitness on the bike. The first 500 miles of the year are always the hardest.

I'm at mile 11.