Long Ride in Northern MN

Two days before my Father's Day half marathon, I went out for a long ride. I had no speed goals, no specific workout, just wanted to get in 45+ miles.

So I headed south from Emily MN on some decently wide shoulders:

I started early, so I was only passed by 3 cars by mile 7.

I got to Crosby (where we've mountain biked before at Cuyuna State Park), and I hopped off on some paved trails that go through the park to add in some more miles:

I rode through Cuyuna and came around a corner to find 2 red fox making babies in the middle of the street. I caught one on camera by the time I got my phone out:

A loon in a small lake.


Turning around at a little lake.


The skinny DEEP Huntington Mine Lake on my way back.


Taking a 2 minute break as I leave the park ready to head
straight north into the wind for the final 15+ miles.

My average dropped from nearly 21 mph to 19.3 mph after fighting the light wind. It wasn't HORRIBLE, but it felt brutal after 15+ miles. I got close to Emily and stopped to take a photo at a large bike. But I found my phone ON in my pocket and it had just taken 70 short videos of the inside of my jersey:

My bike and the BIG BIKE.


Weird elephants as well.


5-mile splits. Straight south to Crosby, then through Cuyuna State Park and back.

In the end, it was 47 miles in 19.3 mph. My first three 5-mile splits were all 20.4 - 21.4 mph, but my last 3 were 17.5 - 19.4 mph. Just a nice ride that ended kind of depressingly slow.

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Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Trouble Biking Home from Work

I was about 2 blocks from home when this happened recently:

Luckily I was so close to home as both boys had sports I needed to take them to! It turns out my chain probably needed more attention than once every 19-20 years (yes, that's the age of that bike!).

Oops.

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Camping and Mountain Biking!

Last week, I spent 3 days with my sister's family at Cuyuna State Recreation Area up by Crosby, MN. We camped and biked on the amazing trails around the former mines. My sister and niece don't really mountain bike (my nephew bikes for a high school team), but we got all 6 of us out for some easier rides on the first day:

Home for 2 nights!


One of the many former-mine-turned-lake in the area. (On a morning walk.)


Taking the boys out for a longer ride (on MTB trails... this is just paved trail getting there).

We didn't go as far as we wanted to because Charlie had his first concussion! I was bringing up the rear, and Charlie was in front of me. I found him laying just off the trail, and thought he had taken a small tumble and was sort of joking around. But he didn't respond to his name. I hopped off my bike, and his arm was limp. (I STILL kind of thought he was joking.) I used all of my TV/movie knowledge and started slapping his face, and he didn't respond. HE WAS OUT. After maybe 10 more seconds, he woke up and was very scared right away - he was maybe out for 30 seconds total. I took off his helmet and "poked" around his head and neck, but he had no tender spots. I looked under his jersey, and we found no scrapes or issues. He doesn't remember, but he must of just taking a really hard fall. He was FINE immediately. We turned around and headed back to our campsite (still maybe 3 miles away), and he was just sort of scared the rest of the way. But then he was completely fine the rest of the day. Now he tells everyone the story.

So to "use" the time we were going to take biking around, we instead grabbed my sister and niece and biked on the paved trails into town for ice cream and some shopping:

(I found and reviewed an expensive Italian cola on my "root beer" blog.)


At the park in Crosby.


Back out at the mines. This narrow (but 2 mile long) lake is 258 feet deep!


Swimming with the fellas!


Pizza back in town that night!!


Getting these 2 to bike!


Charlie covered in "Cuyuna red."


Cousins.


Charlie chased a snake out of the water!




Hitting a different pump track on the way home.

I didn't bike much the final day there as I took down the tent as the kids hit the trails one last time, but I got in almost 30 miles of mountain biking between Monday and Wednesday. (And then I biked to the State Fair on Thurs and Friday, and then went on a long ride on Saturday, so I had 6 days straight of biking last week.)

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Lots of Biking (and a Weekly Bike PR!)

I showed a few vacation pics in my last post about ANOTHER "best long run ever," and on that vacation I racked up the bike miles:

119.33 biking miles last week!!

Those nearly 120 weekly miles beats last year's weekly vacation riding PR of 104.57 miles. Here's a bit about each ride:

TUESDAY I headed out for a long ride. I wanted to hit around 40 miles, but I tacked on more at the end to go over 46 miles - my longest bike ride since an early spring training ride in 2009 for a half IM. I didn't really know what I was going to do for this workout, but I ended up riding easier for 5 miles (19 mph average) and then went hard for the next 20 miles (miles 5-25, while turning around at mile 20). Here are 3 pics of heading out fast on the Central Lakes Trail and 1 heading back easier on my cool down:

Proof I was on my bike.


Lots of views like this.


Riding back easier into the sun somewhere around mile 30.


From Alexandria through Garfield through Brandon through Evansville up to Melby and back.

You can kind of see that my harder miles ended back at Evansville with a few bits of orange and red. I finished those 20 harder miles with a 22.30 mph average. (I did a similar ride last year with 30 hard miles with a 21.6 mph ave.) My overall average including warm-up and cool down was over 20.8 mph for 46 miles.

THURSDAY I didn't want to go too hard. I had a short/hard/important interval workout the next day, and I didn't want to be fried for that. I figured I'd go about 30 miles, but ended up going 37 still feeling good. I kept just over a 20 mph average the whole time just riding moderately.

Same old views of the Central Lakes Trail.


Easy riding selfie.


My bike with Big Ole along the trail in Alex.


Shorter, but still long-ish!

And that afternoon, my boys and newphew and I biked to Lake Brophy Park to do some mountain bike riding! I road with them for just a little (that's the 6 miles on the calendar) before giving my brother-in-law his MTB back so he could ride with them some more.

My newphew after riding down those FUN berms in the background and then climbing back up.


My boys going off a little drop.

SATURDAY was a BUMMER OF A DAY. A storm started rolling through around 4 a.m. And then I was planning on getting up at 5:30 to get in a nice ride before packing up and leaving the cabin, but the weather still looked like this when my alarm went off:

HEAVY rain, slowly starting to ease up... when I need to be done and loading the car.


Gross.

So I didn't get my ride in up in Alexandria. We got home on mostly dry roads, and then it started pouring as we unloaded the car. I had a short window if I was going to get in my ride, so I had to head out in the pouring rain and hope for the best. So I told my wife I'd just be going up and down a 5-mile stretch of road in case lightning became an issue:

South, then north, then south, then north, then some extra to the east and back.

I did 3x5 mile intervals down the road and back. My first was in the POURING rain. The 2nd was a little wet, and then 3rd was a bit better. I was SOAKED and GROSS, but I was happy I got out for a ride.

Started going hard nearly from the start not knowing what the ride would hold in store!


The 3 intervals highlighted.


GROSS legs post-ride.

Again, it was pouring for my first interval, and even through #1 and #3 were more into the wind, they were also a bit "net downhill," so they were faster than #2:

#1: 13:07, 22.9 mph (22.9 mph halfway, then dropping, then back up)

#2: 13:52, 21.6 mph (21.4 mph halfway)

#3: 12:12, 24.6 mph (24.1 mph halfway, up to 24.7, wondering if I could get it to 25!)

SIDENOTE: one reason my last one was so fast was that I was honked at from behind because I rolled through a stop sign on River Road. He then passed me a minute later, yelled to me about "following the laws" as he sped by (yes, he was speeding), and then I caught up to him at the next stoplight. His window was still down, and I rolled up to it with him yelling "HEY, YOU DON'T HAVE DIFFERENT LAWS!" To which I responded, "Well, yes, I do actually..." and then explained to him Minnesota's "Idaho stop" law that says cyclists need to be able to stop if there are vehicles around, but can otherwise go through a stop sign. I was pretty pissed that someone would go out of the way to HONK and YELL and SPEED past a cyclist (who did not impact his travel in any way what-so-ever) when the cyclist was following the law. It's really not always safe out there for cyclists, because people in cars tend to think they own the road. So I was "riding hot" for the rest of that interval, and I used it to try to be faster! :)

Anyway, that was a great week of cycling with 119.33 total miles with 113.01 of those miles being true "training" miles.

And the first 2 weeks of July look good as well, with weekly totals of 75.33 miles and 119.33 miles (both seen at the right below) for 194.66 miles of riding in the first 2 weeks of the month:

To start the month, I had that long slower ride with my cutie on July 4th, and then the 6th was my hilly "tempo loop" ride that averaged 21.71 mph, which I think is my 2nd fastest all time... but it WAS a beautiful morning to ride!

Back with more "vacation" workouts and thoughts on an upcoming race shortly!

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Final (?) Mountain Biking Outing of 2023 with the Boys

Saturday afternoon, the boys and I hit the trails in Theo Wirth for what might have been our last mountain biking of 2023. Here's my Garmin map of our 80 mins of riding: starting in the Wirth Beach parking lot (SE corner), riding the "Glenwood Loop," taking the trail up across Olson Memorial Highway, the "South Loop" north towards the big loop, some paved trails to the big "North Loop," and then back:

Circled are the Glenwood Loop, the South Loop, and the main big North Loop.


Close-up of the big North Loop. LOTS of twists and turns!


Henry coming down the 7 twists of the Glenwood Loop.
(Seen in this photo and the next 3.)


Charlie coming through. They really like this downhill section!


Heading to some more berms.


Heading down.


Henry somewhere in the middle of the big North Loop.


Charlie coming down some rocks.


Henry went over this 3 times...


... he got better each time!


Charlie couldn't keep his feet on the pedals, so he never made it over smoothly.


Five minutes into our drive home - he was OUT!

It was a fun Saturday afternoon with my boys! MAYBE we can find some weather to get out again before we're snowed in.

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