Hills and Headwinds!

I went back out to Winter Garden today to put down some more miles, training for the MS 150. I rode form downtown Winter Garden out to Lake Minneola. I Google Mapped it and it came back with 30 miles round-trip - not a difficult ride if it were flat, but I got my first dose of some rolling hills. 

I wanted to get a late start because it was slated to be a cold day so I wanted to make sure the sun was high and temps were as warm as possible, which today was in the high 50s. What I didn't expect was the steady 20 - 25 mph headwind, which slowed my typical cruising speed down noticeably, as well as kept me pretty damn cold. Even though speeds were down a little, it still felt great because I was getting an awesome workout. 

Lake Minneola - taken while hiding from wind behind a tree!

As I reached the city of Minneola, I was pretty well chilled but then saw the lake - my half-way point. When I got to the lake I checked my mileage and realized I still had a few miles to ride alongside the lake to get to the actual turn-around that I found on Google Maps. All was well as I approached the lake and I was looking forward to some sprinting to try and get warm and get some good speed. Well, winds jumped up and were blowing even harder and colder off the lake. Seeing large whitecaps in a lake in Central Florida is quite a sight. I made my way around the lake but noticec that the wind was blowing so hard that it was actually blowing me off my track, even though I was maintaining about 20 mph. I decided to turn around about 2 miles from where I intended to turn and make my way back to Winter Garden. There was a stretch of trail that was alongside a beach that wrapped around the lake. The wind was blowing the sand in a steady stream across the trail and I was in no mood to deal with that.

The ride back was great. Most of the hard climbs were on the way out and into headwinds. The ride home was mostly downhill with the wind at my back. One of the coolest parts of the West Orange Trail is that there are stations all along it. Some are simply parking lots with a water station while others (the one I stopped at today) are larger parking lots with a building that houses toilets, I believe I saw a snack bar, and a bike shop! Now, the shop wasn't stocked with tons of bikes for sale, but they were there doing repairs and selling the essentials, as well as offering rentals (both hybrids and road bikes). It's pretty comforting and impressive knowing that these stations are scattered along the trail. 

I ended up logging 25.4 miles, just a few short of my desired 30. But, with this being my first time tackling hills and facing such consistent and strong headwinds, I am very happy with what I accomplished. Tomorrow I plan on heading out to the Cady Way Trail. It's local and flat, so after beating up on myself today, I'm looking forward to a flat and fast 22+ miles tomorrow.