Fun & Fitness over 50

I just love riding first thing in the morning about 6AM. For one thing, it is so peaceful on the back roads where I go. Very few people are up and going yet. Sometimes I am tempted to wait until later in the day because it is still chilly or at certain times of the year it's still dark (it starts getting light about 5:30 now). Also, I am a real morning person so I like to try to do everything in the morning including taking a long time to get moving. I like to have my first coffee while still in a semi-conscious state (about 1/2 hour). Then while cup #2 is brewing, check my email, current temperature and the weather forecast on the computer. I also like to have a time of meditation and prayer, scripture reading, other book reading and journal 3 pages in the morning. Impossible to do ALL of this EVERY morning and still get to work on time. Actually, I don't think I WANT to do EVERYTHING EVERY morning. :-)
So when I ride, that's about all I have time for. And I'm doing longer rides in the AM too. I was doing a 10.3 mile ride that took me 50 minutes. Today I rode 20 miles in 95 minutes. I had intended to ride 75 minutes, that's 10 minutes warm-up, 55 minutes in zone 3, and 10 minute cool-down. My intended ride for this was out New Scotland South Road, a route I like very much. The problem is that there are 2 fairly active train crossings on that route. As it turned out, this morning I missed getting through the crossing by a matter of seconds. I could hear the train coming as I approached the crossing. The barriers were already down and I could have probably made it through but I just thought it wasn't worth the risk. And the poor conductor would have had a cow! So I thought, no problem, I'll just turn around a go another route. I wound up riding a lot longer because I didn't calculate how far out I should go before turning back. I really enjoyed it but I can feel it now and I want to do a 50 mile tomorrow. Probably should take it easy the day before my long ride. ;-)