A 3-Hour Tour

After breakfast today we packed a lunch, filled up the water bottles with ice and water,  and set off on the bicycles to do a tour.

We did have a couple of different maps of trails in the various municipalites in this general area we call Victoria... and we started out well... but my goodness, some of these trail interchanges are not marked at all and we ended up doubling back a couple of times to look for routes we should have taken. (And yet, in other areas, the signs are abundant and in places you wouldn't really need them... who decides these things?  Not the user, surely.)

But it didn't matter... the point was just to go for a nice long bike ride...

We cycled on paved paths that wound through parklands farmlands, and suburbs, and on narrow gravel trails through wooded areas adjacent to a small river.  And we rode on some suburban streets and across wooden tressles that used to be rail beds.

It was wonderful!

We rode across this bridge...

And looked down to an alternate crossing. 

We did 3 hours and 15 minutes of nearly continuous riding with only a 5 minute break to take these pictures, and further along, a 10 minute break to eat our lunches.

My quads were pretty tired by the time we got back so I made sure to drink lots of water and s - t - r - e - t - c - h .

I think that this cycling is making my legs stronger and will help prepare me for longer runs.

Does that make sense?  Any thoughts or advice about that?

This afternoon I have mapped a 6-mile run for me to do tomorrow morning, around the neighborhood, while The Captain is away doing the cleanup as his varnishing project is complete.

I am nervous about it, but pretty excited, too.