MAX EFFORT CARDIO (part deux)

I decided to bike all the way around Martha's Vineyard today. This is roughly the route I took minus a 1-2 mile detour in the beginning from me getting lost right off the ferry. The longest I'd ever biked before this was around 30 miles, so I thought maybe it would be reasonable.

However, you'll notice in the route that there's this long stretch between Chilimark and Edgartown. I was traveling from Edgar town on my way, and I noticed that there happened to be a convenient bike back next to the road, so I took it. Half way there, the bike path forked north. Some people had stopped so I asked them if it went somewhere else or came back to this road. He showed me this map that showed the path going all the way to Chilimark. He showed me a map of lies. The bike path ended up going through the middle of this state park and dumped me back farther than I had been before. It started raining during this detour, so for around 90 minutes I found myself alone, wet and in the middle of nowhere. Total cost ~16 extra miles. wrecked. I was pretty miffed after I discovered this. Luckily dude who was passing by helped point me in the right direction again. By the time I got out to the western end of the island, my legs were fully cramping. I had to stop twice to try to uncramp them. A part of this was due to the hilliness of that area. I thought it would all be flat, but instead it was full of hills - and I am horrible at uphills. I nearly bit it a few times from running off the pavement on these.

I finally got to the sweet lighthouse at Aquinna and got a delicious lobster roll there just as the lady was closing up shop. Then it was a 20 mile trek back to the ferry. after 45 miles of biking prior, those 20 were easy. The only hard part was the seat :( Riding for that long is ... uncomfortable to say the least. Also my shoulders and lower traps started cramping from trying to keep my chest up. Then my hands and feet went numb and eventually my legs, aside from the cramping.

I'm guessing it was 60-65 miles total for the day. Around 6 hours of biking, which comes to ~10mph. On the flat stretches I was doing around 15. On the slow, it was much worse. I also spend some time wandering through the towns at first. The last 20 ended up being a reverse split of sorts, as once everything went numb, I averaged around 14.

It ended up being a pretty good day to bike. I'm feeling decent now, though this is probably due to a large coffee I got on the way home. For a while after I finsihed I was freezing and shivering? I have to catch an 8am plane flight, so it will be a small miracle if I manage to get there in time.