Training Run July 26th

Total Distance 162.97 Km.
Time in the saddle: 6 hr 54mi 11 sec
Total time of trip: 7 hr 45 min
Avg Speed: 23.6 Km/Hr


On Saturday July 26th, the alarm woke me up with a start at 5 a.m. as we had agreed to meet at Tim Horton's at Sherwood Forest Mall at 6 a.m. to start our ride. Albert de Vries, Scott Fletcher and I had previously decided that we would bike to Grand Bend and visit Ken Faber at his cottage, a distance of approximately 80 km. Albert had mapped out the route and we made a few detours as some roads were gravel. In the end we did travel on one gravel road. We arrived at the cottage at 9:45 which we all agreed was good time. My average speed on the ride to the cottage was 25 km per hour.
Ken was not home so we spent approximately 1/2 hour on the beach eating some lunch and relaxing. Soon it was time to head back home. The ride home was expected to be a little harder as we had to face a little head wind. Albert and Scott both have a quicker pace than I and I suggested to them that if they wished to ride on, that was fine with me, since I knew the way home anyway. That day the MS Society was also sponsoring a ride from Grand Bend to London, so we decided to follow their posted route home. We experienced some rain, but did not really get that wet. By the time we got home we could see that it had rained, but we missed most of it.
I arrived home at 1:45. The total time away on the this trip was 7 hours and 45 minutes.
I felt good knowing that I had just completed a trip of 163 km. The longest distance for me on the C2C tour will be 153 km. I did have some discomfort in my knee after about 115 km. It would pain for a while and then would be ok. This was off and on after the 115 km mark. I believe it is from an accident that I had in 1975. I guess once I break that 100 km barrier to be careful for my knee.