I cycled to Seattle today on the Burke-Gilman trail which starts at Marymoor Park in Redmond and goes up North around Lake Washington and back down to Gasworks Park in Seattle. The trail is 27 miles (43.5km) one way and passes a number of parks and nice expensive houses along the lake. Its a relatively flat trail with a slight uphill gradient in the last 5 miles.
I had cycled this same trail there and back (54 miles or 87km) 2 months back and almost couldn’t make it back. Now that I’ve actually converted the number of miles to km, I’m starting to realize just how incredibly brave (read: stupid) I was to attempt that two-way return trip by myself. I was totally unprepared and unfit for that ride.
Anyway, today’s ride was much more pleasent. I went with some friends (and friends’ friends) who mostly rollerbladed, so that limited how fast I cycled to a comfortable speed. Not only was I cycling slower but I had company, and that really helped to take away the monotony of the middle 20 miles of the ride. From my epic 87km ride 2 months back, I remember only the first and last few miles. Everything in between was a blur of pain from cramping up or from sitting on the bike seat for too long. Also this time, thanks to some ingenious planning, some of us drove our cars to Gasworks early in the morning (7.30am! On at Saturday morning!) so that we needed only to blade/cycle one-way there and then drive back. I even had a chance to rollerblade the last few miles when I swapped with someone who had enough of blading.
Posted by kelxia 
