It was a bit chilly this morning. Since I didn't go to any parties last night and therefore didn't have anything to recover from I was determined to get a ride in. It was about 50 degrees when I left, determined to beat my time of last weeks' ride to Disneyland. Thankfully I bought a long-sleeve cycling jacket on eBay this week, a perfect time to try it out.
About 3 miles in I started to question my decision. My fingers were freezing (memo to self, get closed-finger gloves), and my legs were already getting a little sore. I started thinking that since I put in over 70 miles last week, and had a club ride in 2 days, AND a hockey game next Wednesday, ... that maybe I'd make Disneyland a stretch goal with the option to turn back at the bike shop (10 miles out). My cyclometer had me pegged about 14MPH as I continued; last week I was doing 16+ on this stretch.
I was feeling pretty good as I passed the bike shop/LB Town Center mall and continued on. Soon I found myself playing 'leapfrog' with a city bus: I would pass it when it stopped for passengers and it would pass me afterwards. This went on for about 8 miles. What did I say last week... it is the little things that keep you going? I wonder if the driver found it as amusing as I did. Sometimes I had to push a bit to catch up which helped my time, although I purposely had my cyclometer set to NOT show me elapsed time.
Disneyland was even more crowded than last week. Not that I stayed long - just enough to take a couple of selfies, stretch the legs a bit, down a gel pack, and I was back on my way...
Somebody asked me about gel packs. My friend Kia introduced me to them a few years ago, giving me a couple of packs called 'GU'. I would take one before hockey games, didn't think they made a big difference. Just about everyone in my bike club brings them, I tried ones from Clif and have been carrying them on every ride. I usually take one at the half-way point of a ride, no matter how far it is, and I will never go on a ride without them! (Another memo to self: put some in your hockey bag before your game next week.)
The ride back was uneventful. Strangely I was going faster on the return trip after struggling a bit on the way out, rather than the other way around last week. Maybe the wind was at my back? I didn't check, as it wasn't as strong as last week.
I hit the fog about mile 33, it wasn't so much the legs getting tired as it was the overall feeling of fatigue. Shortly after that I turned the corner and looked up at the 1.25 mile incline ahead... No matter what route I took I was going to have to so some uphill riding. I downshifted the front crank which I rarely do - I wasn't looking to set any speed records I just wanted to get up the incline without stopping. There were 2 signals along the way, as much as my legs wanted to stop both were green as I went through them a pedestrian-like pace of 9MPH. Soon I was rewarded with a 25MPH trip down the other side where my legs got to rest. From that point, other than a slight incline going over the 710 freeway, the rest of the ride was basically a smooth cool-down period.
In the end I went .15 miles further than the week before, and it took 7 minutes less to do it.
Not sure when I'll have the time to do this ride again, but it is cool to say I did it. Twice. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment