300+ Miles

I broke the 300 mile mark today on my bikes! I started riding about a month ago. I'm averaging 16 mph and I ride 12-15 miles each time. On the straights I go about 18-20 mph. I found that road bikes are about 4 mph faster than a mountain bike given the same effort (power). Good thing here in Columbus we have a bike path near my apartment. It runs along the river and is very scenic since you are hidden in the forest. It takes you away from the traffic. I just hop on the bike and I'm at the bike path within half a mile. The bad thing about the path is that other people use it to jog, walk, walk their dogs, and rollerblade, so you really have to watch for these people. Today is the first day I got rained on too! The rain actually kept me cool, though.

There are still a lot of bikers who go faster than me. But I'm flattered that the last 2 days I have others riding my draft. Apparently by following very close to me they have less wind resistance. Naturally the stronger rider is in the front....hehehe! Riding my draft (or "sucking my wheel") makes me nervous because I have to keep my speed constant or the person behind would crash into me.

On other news, I finally got 1 of the 2 reimbursement checks from my interviews at Texas. I spent a total of $1800 on the interviews and I got back $1000. The other $800 should be in the mail right now. It sucks to get reimbursed this late.

Ivy's coming to Columbus for a visit on Memorial 3-day weekend! We have yet to decide what to do. I thought about going to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but the round trip drive would be 14 hours and Ivy won't get to Columbus until Saturday afternoon. Apparently there are a lot of local events; I'm just not sure how interesting they would be.