Because it was there

I did a big ride tonight and now I can't sleep.  Doh!!  Did too much I guess.   I started around 7 and went until about 10:30.  It was cold.  So cold in fact that I stopped along the way looking for some newspaper or plastic to shove in my outfit.  I found one of those dog poo bag dispensers, took off my shoes, put the bags over my socks, and put my shoes back on.  Then I slid a couple down my arms and one on my chest.  Then I was better.

I did the normal route downtown until I got to the Key Bridge.  I felt really good tonight.  I wandered through Georgetown, then went slight right on Pennsylvania.  Figured I'd see how Barry and Michele were getting along.  There's all this construction in front of their house for the inauguration.  The entire streets full of  enormous stadium seating.  They only have a narrow sidewalk since the road is closed meaning I had to mix with the pedestrians.

From there I rode over around the mall and down to the fish market.  I hung out there a bit and watched a big gang playing some sort of card game for money.  They were so animated that at first I thought it was a fight.  They were just into the game.  I couldn't catch on to how the game was played and I sort of stuck out there in my spandex, so I continued on.

I went over to the Anacostia river trail.  I followed that until I got into the rough part of town and then I did a few loops through the neighborhoods people watching.  What a cold miserable night for those poor homeless people.  After some people watching I headed back over to the river.  Instead of getting on the river trail I went on down to the train station.  I wanted to see where the homeless man in Alexandria told me you can get on the trains.  Sure enough there's a curve where the trains slow way down.

From there the road followed the tracks so I took that until it dead ended at the river.  It wasn't exactly an area where you dilly-dally so instead of turning back where I came, I made the instant decision to cross the train trestle.  It was a bit tough in my cycling shoes carrying my bike.  At first it's normal with rocks between the ties, then once you're over the river it gets a bit more precarious.  As I got over to the other side the US Park Police came over and nabbed me.  Turns out they prefer only train traffic to traverse the train trestle.  Bummer.   They gave me a pretty good lecture about the inauguration and them being on high alert.  They asked me why I was out on the bridge and I told them I was headed this way and it was there.  They were sure I had bombs hidden under my spandex and I thought they might be wanting to do a cavity search so I kept quiet and said yes sir a lot.  They sat me in their car and ran my social security number and lectured me some more.  Then they sent me on my way.


From there I circled back to the stadium until I could see the capital.  Then I went along the Potomac back through Georgetown and back towards home.  By then I had like 3hrs out there and I was starting to get tired.  When I got back to the W&OD I decided to time myself home.  I pretty much went as hard as I could.  It took me 45:33.  Doing a bit of math that means I averaged 24miles per hour.  That's pretty good with the hill at the finish and all that.  I felt my power drop pretty bad the last 7 or 8 minutes.  Probably did 26mph until the hills and then it dropped down.  I guess I should look into a power meter again.

Ok, off to sleep.