All I've got to say is thank goodness the MS Ride is in June this year and not May… because if it was, I probably would have to relegate myself to doing the 30 mile route. Let's see, a little more than a month and a half to whip myself into shape to do the metric century — doable, I hope. It's not like I've been sedentary all winter, I've been riding Cass a lot, so my cardiovascular fitness should be a little higher than couch potato level.

So! First ride of the season was last (last) Sunday, as I was away in Utah visiting my parents for the past week. I'm having a bit of an issue plotting out routes that won't destroy my knees with steep hills, which means much of North Arlington, McLean, and Potomac (all which have great biking) are out for a few weeks. Similarly, I've decided that I need to be cautious of where in South Arlington I go, because the drivers there are generally not as mindful as the ones above Route 50 are. DC is limited to weekends, and I've found the risk of getting doored goes up by about 60%. Plus that whole biker getting run over by a garbage truck last year… yeah.

That being said, I think I'm going to actually have to relegate myself to using some of the bike trails until I'm strong enough to tackle the leg 'n lung burners near the barn in Potomac. (Probably might want to stay off River Road if I don't want to get humiliated by the local racers that train there, too. )

Anyway, I managed to plot out a route that worked pretty well — fairly low traffic, not too too many turns, and I only got lost disoriented once. Not a killer workout, but good enough to get the legs workin' again. (And remind me I need to clean my chain.) I think I got around 14-15 miles on my cyclometer thanks to some missed turns, but hey, who cares… I went biking!