Today I rode eighty six miles with the girls group and two random guys we scooped up early in the ride. This is a PR for my longest ride ever, and my booty doesn't thank me for what I've done to it today.

I give you permission to have my head examined. Surely there must be a chemical imbalance.

I don't think our tenacious ride leader had any idea how many miles we were going to ride, but I thank her anyway for not telling me in advance. If you say, "We're going to ride 80+ miles today" I may not have attended the ride, or I would have harbored visions of doom in my head which would have detracted from my enjoyment of a nice ride with a great group of cyclists on a very beautiful early spring day.

I learned something about myself today. I learned that the half-marathon training has benefitted my cycling condition because my body has learned to conserve energy for endurance-type workouts. Today I actually felt like crap for the first half of the ride, and thought I was going to suffer some serious torture to get myself and my bike back to our meeting place. Instead, I started feeling froggy. At mile 80, we decided to start sprinting in a little mock 'race' against each other. Fun, and nuts.

It's interesting to see just how much you can pull out after you feel exhausted. There's a little left if you reach in deep enough.