As you might surmise, this is not my age.

It is the number of miles I rode today on the Virginia Capital Trail. My goal all summer has been to work up to riding, essentially, from Richmond to Williamsburg on the trail. Originally, that idea was the entire 52 mile length. On my 20 pound mountain bike, that wasn’t going to happen. And, there’s a great trailhead within a fifteen minute drive of the house that makes for a good parking/starting point, about ten miles into the trail, and there’s another one just on the edge of Williamsburg that shaves a bit more off.

I did not ride from Richmond to Williamsburg (I shall explain why shortly), though I did ride the equivalent; I just went out half way and turned around. Going to Williamsburg requires my lovely wife driving out and picking me up. This didn’t, and she is very busy making dresses and performing alterations ahead of next weekend’s WIDA Open Championship, and I did not wish to take her away from that. This way, I didn’t have to bother her.

As I said, I took Friday off, because nobody was there anyway. I hit the trail around 8:10am, and finished up just shy of 11:30. Seventeen and a half miles out, seventeen and a half back. I did great for the first thirty miles. The last five hurt, though I did it. Bucket list achievement unlocked.

For posterity, here’s photographic documentation of the before and after, left to right:

I look a bit less chipper in the after image, but I was still rather happy with my accomplishment.

According to a calculator I found online, I burned approximately 1800 calories, which makes the beer I’m drinking right now (Hardywood Tropication IPA) *free*. The next one’ll be free too, but I don’t know what that one’s gonna be just yet. We shall see.

That has been my day, other than a run out to the store to buy a couple of pairs of shorts, because it’s ridiculously hot right now, and I only had one pair of non-bike shorts in my current size, and I’d donated all the others. Got caught in the rain on the way back, but whatever.

Anyway, I feel good about it. I bragged about it to my kid, who’s currently unfolding in Sydney airport after sixteen hours crossing the Atlantic (she time-traveled via the magic of timezones and the international date line as well, which is bad ass.). She’ll be in Adelaide tomorrow.

That’s been my day. I won.