Update

I hit a new personal best in mileage today, a 60 mile round-trip to Leavenworth, Kansas. I expected my legs to feel like warmed over jello tonight but that's really not the case. I've been getting in two long rides a week and it's starting to pay off. I managed today's ride in 2 1/2 hours each way. I probably would have been slower coming back but I took a three hour break to visit with a friend in Leavenworth. The only hitch in today's ride was a map reading mistake that lead me three miles down a dead-end road. Rather than running parallel to a set of train tracks, as I thought, the road simply stopped. Instead of back-tracking I chose to follow the tracks on foot to a point where the road re-connected with my path. Stumbling down a rail-bed in bicycle shoes for 1/2 a mile is no easy task but I did find a stray rail-road spike for my troubles. If you'd like to see how I made the mistake look at the northern border of Wyandotte Lake Park in Kansas City, Kansas on any online map service. I was on 77th street headed north and thought it would veer west and merge with Wolcott Dr. on the other side of the park. This will be an important lesson when I get into the nitty-gritty of my route planning, details of which will come in a future blog.