Longest Ride

Last year I finally wanted to participate in Raphas Festive 500 challenge. I knew that it would probably be a bit difficult because out of the 8 days I had family comittments to attend on four of them. That meant I had to make the 500 km in only four days. On my first long ride on the 27th I did 106 km, bit I was crazy exhausted. I couldnt even finish the ride I had planned. I had to jump in the train 20 km early. I was so demotivated - I just didnt think that 106 km would be such a problem for me. So I took the 28th off. But because of that I only had 280 km at the end of the 29th. That meant I would need to ride 280 km on the 30th because this was my last day I could ride. First I planned to ride to Freiburg but that was a route I didnt know at all and it had 1300 meters of altitude. That’s not that much but in comination with the lengths I got scared. So I decided to ride the local river here 100 km up and the same way back home down the river.

I only managed to leave the house at 16 o’clock. So I had to ride pretty much everything in the dark. What I didn’t foresee was the fog that could appear next to a river. Sometimes I literaly had to slow down because I was not able to see far enough. But all in all I was almost surprised how well it went. Until km 180 everything was fine. Of course it was long and I could feel my legs but it was ok - I didn’t hurt. But the last 20 to 30 km were hard. I think the hardest part was that my body wasn’t used to being on the bike for 10 hours. My legs were kind of ok but my arms really hurt. I was laying in bed and really felt the pain my arms. Lukily that was mostly gone after a good nights sleep.

I forcefully finished the Festive 500 challenge for the first time. I improved my longest ride distance by 75 km to 225 km. I wonder if I ever will be in a position where I don’t have to rush myself so much for Festive 500. 🙃 I probably will do a similar disance in a couple of months when it is a bit warmer and especially brighter. Let’s see how it will feel then.