Just to recap—on Saturday I rode 48 miles with an average speed of 15.6 mph. Today, Sunday, I rode 53 miles with an average speed of 15.6 mph.

I think I would have to say that Tanglewood 2011 Sunday was a much more satisfying day for me personally than Saturday.

I arrived at the park early and had time to have breakfast with everyone, so I didn’t have the hunger pangs problem that I had during yesterday’s ride.

The beginning of the ride was chilly in much the same way as Saturday, and I began the ride with my jacket on, but at the first rest stop I stopped and removed it. A few miles after that the sun started to shine through, and from there on the ride was really quite beautiful.

I think I would have to say that the route for Sunday is much more scenic than the Saturday one. And once the sun began to shine it was very pretty. With scenic valleys and farms, the river, horse pastures, tree lined roads that when the sun came out became leaf dappled shady lanes. Just very very nice.

I will say however that the legs were feeling the previous days ride. In the first few miles I began to wonder if I was actually going to be able to accomplish 50 miles.

But as I said earlier, as the sun came out my mood rose and I began to enjoy the ride. It still hurt, but I just decided I would enjoy the day and the ride would take care of itself, and for the most part I was right.

I stopped at four out of the five rest stops. The final one I skipped and pushed on to the finish. Several of them had entertainment. One of them had a guy dressed like Elvis doing snippets of Jimmy Buffet songs. It didn’t really make any sense to me, but it was entertaining.

There was a route change just after stop four. Apparently there was some concern about gravel that was making part of that road dangerous. My guess is that change added a small amount of extra mileage to the route. But at the end of the day that’s okay. It couldn’t have been too much more, and better to be safe. Gravel in the road can be every bit as dangerous as water.

After the ride I ate a big lunch of barbecue and called it a day. I’m very happy and satisfied with Sunday’s ride, and I’m very glad I was able to do both days this year.

The most important thing is that I was able to raise $1,153 for the wonderful cause of fighting MS. Now I look forward to next year.