I wish I could say that I felt great, finished strong, and left a swath of scorched pavement in my wake but that just isn’t how it went down. The reality is that this ride hurt and that a 5 hour road ride is “a speck on a gnat’s ass” compared to the effort that the KTR will require. The next six weeks are going to hurt a bit.
The positives:
I did manage to ride 94 miles in 5:06:00 but the last 40 minutes were not pretty. This is the earliest in the year I have done a ride this long at this pace and I felt it but I wanted to get over the mental hurdle of knocking out a nice big ride.
The negatives:
Will the aliens please return my comfortable saddle? All of my bikes have the exact same saddle, a Terry Fly Ti, because it is the most comfortable I have found at an acceptable weight. How is it that over the course of one off-season my saddle feels like an instrument of torture? I am not patient and my first instinct is to start trying new saddles but I am going to hold tight and see if it is merely early season discomfort or something a small change in tilt will fix.
I could have done a better job of fueling and I know better. At the 4:40:00 mark I was dangerously close to a bonk so I pulled over and took two big hits of Espresso Hammer Gel, a couple of big swigs of water, and had a short but direct conversation with myself. Sometimes stopping for just two minutes can make a big difference.
While I was in my own little world Saturday, a handful of hardy soles lined up for the Rim Ride and the word on the street is that it was as hard as predicted. Congrats to everyone who lined up for this early season test.
The positives:
I did manage to ride 94 miles in 5:06:00 but the last 40 minutes were not pretty. This is the earliest in the year I have done a ride this long at this pace and I felt it but I wanted to get over the mental hurdle of knocking out a nice big ride.
The negatives:
Will the aliens please return my comfortable saddle? All of my bikes have the exact same saddle, a Terry Fly Ti, because it is the most comfortable I have found at an acceptable weight. How is it that over the course of one off-season my saddle feels like an instrument of torture? I am not patient and my first instinct is to start trying new saddles but I am going to hold tight and see if it is merely early season discomfort or something a small change in tilt will fix.
I could have done a better job of fueling and I know better. At the 4:40:00 mark I was dangerously close to a bonk so I pulled over and took two big hits of Espresso Hammer Gel, a couple of big swigs of water, and had a short but direct conversation with myself. Sometimes stopping for just two minutes can make a big difference.
While I was in my own little world Saturday, a handful of hardy soles lined up for the Rim Ride and the word on the street is that it was as hard as predicted. Congrats to everyone who lined up for this early season test.
2 comments:
Must feel great to knock off a ride of that length this early in the season. Not having to get back in shape after the winter is the best benefit of riding year round.
Nice ride and a pretty quick pace too! Don't worry about KTR. Do the work, strengthen your mind and you'll be fine. Every time I do one of these endurance events I remember that without a strong mind, the rest is meaningless. And a strong mind can make up for an aweful lot of missed training now and then :)
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