40 acres and a mule

Today I got in a 41 mile ride along the beach. Its pretty flat until the last 5 miles where it’s almost all uphill. I felt great during the ride, like I was going faster at a lower heart rate than before. I averaged a heart rate of 156 bpm and the max was 177 beats; that was undoubtedly that final uphill run. It was about 3 beats lower the first 20 miles then I caught a vicious headwind on the way back. If I didn’t have to deal with that last uphill stretch I felt like I could have ridden 70 miles easily.