Last ride of the month.  Time to go big.  Want to get more than 20 miles in one shot.  It’ll be my longest bike ride yet.  I bring along PBM just in case his personal bike mechanic skills are required and also because he’s kinda cool.

Meet him outside PAM and jet across the river to hop on the Springwater Corridor.  This is a bike/hike/walk path that starts on the Eastbank Esplanade and goes all the way to Gresham.  It’s a really easy path, crosses intersections rarely and has very minimal elevation changes.

We take it out to mile marker 12.5 so that we can hit an even 25 miles.  This was around SE 128th Street.  Not quite to Gresham, but good enough for me.  Took a short water break and headed back to town.

On the way back, PBM commented that it was nice to take it slow and have time to take in the scenery.  I was pretty sure we were going fast until that point.  My legs felt a bit like jell-o and every time we had to stop, it was increasingly more difficult to start up again.  The ass pain was back and I shifted frequently to find a more comfortable position that didn’t exist.

When I got home and mapped our route, it turned out to be 25.97 miles in a little over 2.5 hours.  I was almost slightly heartbroken that it didn’t reach the marathon length, but I guess that’s a goal for next time.  25.97 miles is a new record for me.  A record that signifies the distance my own exerted energy can take me in literal miles.  My own exerted energy has taken me a lot of places and has done a lot of amazing things, but this is a quantifiable figure.  An immediate gratification for a thoughtful and physical endeavor.  And it wasn’t that hard.  I can do two times that distance, after a bit more practice I imagine.