149th ride

This morning, I had to forgo riding to work, since I need the car to get to handbell rehearsal at 6:00 today—then I'll pick Michelle up late, since she has to stay at school for curriculum night. After getting out of work on the early side of average, I had hoped to leave at 3:30 and do a 13.5-mile ride to Saline. But at that hour, the Tigers will still in the final stretch of an exciting matinee game against Seattle. So I stayed until they finished it, a little past quarter to four, to take the four-game series from Seattle 3-1, and in the process reduce their 'Magic Number' for clinching the title to 4. (That is, any combination of four Detroit wins and Cleveland losses will guarantee us the Central Division championship.) Now we hope that Cleveland cooperates, so that we can clinch the title at home this weekend before the home fans, in our final home series of the regular season (unlike 2011 and 2012, when we clinched on the road).

Anyway, as a result of this late departure, I did a considerably abbreviated ride, of 7.6 miles in 40 minutes, so that I would not arrive at handbell rehearsal all out of breath.

EVENING

Since my ride this afternoon had to be shorter than I had planned, I was delighted when our handbell rehearsal finished this evening in time for me to work in another short ride before picking Michelle up from her marathon day at school. So I rode the Lohr-Textile Greenway, that broad paved path that parallels Lohr Rd., running down as far as Textile. This replicated my first ride when this journey began, back on January 19. (Though it took me 61 minutes then, as opposed to 29 minutes tonight—so I'm glad to see that I have made some improvement!)

And, given the dramatic decrease in daylight since I last rode in the evening, I was very glad for my flashing headlight and flashing taillight, and to be doing the bulk of my ride off-road. This 5.6-mile ride (in 29 minutes) gave me a total of 13.2 miles for the day, in 1 hour and 9 minutes.