To the Lizard!

Got up this morning and hopped on my bike to go have my morning coffee at the Green Lizard Cycling and Coffee shop in Herndon. Actually, before I left I had my pre-coffee coffee and stretched. I knew the round trip was 30+ miles, which is a long ride for me, and so I wanted to be stretched and warmed up to ward off any knee problems.

The good news is that it all went without a hitch. I made it to the Green Lizard (coffee! bikes! lizards!) pretty easily. Sat and had coffee and a muffin while I read the paper, then headed home Total distance was 31.6 miles. I had no IT band (knee) issues at all. I was a little wobbly after the ride - I went to the Westover Farmers Market and was staggering around like I was drunk - but no pain.

I saw deer alongside the trail at Vienna, and of course the usual collection of bad behavior, mishaps, and odd things:

- Almost got hit by a car where the trail crosses Great Falls Street. Event though the streets technically have the right of way over the trail at intersectinos (the trail has stop signs), drivers crossing the trail often yield to trail users. I saw a car approaching the trail very slowly and I assumed the driver was stopping. It turns out the driver was just distracted and he kept going as I crossed the intersection. I ducked out of the way off the trail just in time - a near miss.

- Lots of Lycranauts passing where they shouldn't (e.g., on narrow bridges).

- I had to ride off the trail onto the grass to avoid a swarm of kids taking up the whole width of the trail.

- And there were the usual interesting folks - a guy walking backwards, a unicyclist out riding with his family, a guy with long dreadlocks riding along waving his arms in big circles as he rode, almost like he was doing the butterfly stroke, a guy carrying a bicycle on his bike, a guy riding a tiny little bicycle car looking thing (not an ELF, though), and so on.

When I got home I used the Strava FlyBy feature and discovered that I had intersected with a few friends, none of whom I had noticed (all cyclists look alike to me on the trail). One guy from my Freezing Saddles team and I rode so close together for a couple of miles it looks on the FlyBy playback like we're riding together - but in fact neither of us knew the other was there.

I'm proud of myself for knocking off a 30+ mile ride without incident. Next, on to the half century!