Week 5: Century (05/03/2009 - 05/09/2009)

100, the magical number. I've only done one other 100+ mile ride, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's likely that I'll hit the mountains this week or next, which means that my mileage will probably dip, so I wanted to squeeze this ride in before that happened.

It turned out to be an interesting ride. Last time, I remember basically being exhausted to tears, but I had KB for company so the distance and time went by pretty quickly. This time, it was harder mentally than physically. My wish for the wind to calm down from yesterday... did NOT come true.

This ride made me think about how fickle one's perception of the passage of time can be. The wind was really brutal (worse than yesterday) on my way down to Seal Beach, and for some reason, going slowly feels mentally taxing, in some strange reversal of the laws of relativity... it felt as though the passage of time itself had slowed to a crawl. At one point, I realized that my face had gotten fixed into a grimace for the past hour or so, but then it also occurred to me that I really wasn't exerting myself more than normal, I was just going slower.

I felt really frustrated and demoralized arriving at my halfway point a good 10 minutes behind the split that I needed to achieve my performance goals (sub-6 hours, > 17 mph). Things were not looking good for me and this ride at this point...

In hindsight it was only really bad for about an hour, but that hour felt like the longest hour of the entire ride. In contrast, my mood and even my perception of my level of tiredness improved drastically once I turned around and was now going at a good clip with the wind behind me. I was pretty blissed out for a while before the wind shifted again and I had to cope with the headwind again on the last segment.

Thankfully by this point, I had a new motivator--I realized that my goals, once seemingly lost, were within reach, if I rode a strong last 15 miles. And once again, when one is racing the clock, the passage of time speeds up to warp speed. I actually did ride a strong last segment, and was really happy with how much fight was still in my legs at that stage, but it just wasn't enough to hang onto 17 mph. But hey, 1 of 2 goals isn't a complete disaster.


Sunday 05/03: 101 miles, 5:58:12 (16.9 mph), Seal Beach the long way via Encanto Park with a detour to the Rosemead Crossing to be safely over 100 miles. Felt a lot better at the end than I imagined that I would. I fought hard to keep my 17.0 mph average on the last 5 miles, but it just wasn't meant to be with the slight uphill and headwind. Felt kind of consterned, but I'll take it in stride. Overall, I was encouraged by how well I held up.

Monday 05/04: 31.4 miles, 1:54:05 (16.5 mph), 8 x RB laps. A nice morning shake out from yesterday. I was actually pretty certain that I would not wake up/be too tired to ride today, but miraculously, my eyes blinked open at 6:30, so I decided to get up and squeeze in a short ride. Felt pretty freakin' fantastic for having gone 100 miles the day before. A little bit tired, but not too much worse for the wear. However, mental note: I am seriously going to mace the next person who pulls this 'blow past and then slow down in front of me, repeatedly' crap! Soooo annoying... Grrrrr.....

Tuesday 05/05: 45.74 miles, 2:41:33 (16.9 mph), Peter's short long loop. I went out with my coworkers yesterday and ate SO much delicious thai food that I developed a horrible stomach ache that was still with me in the morning. As a result, I was conveniently already awake early in the morning, but I had to go real easy on my ride. I just tried to keep the gears small and the cadence high, so I was pretty happy to still end up with a modest improvement in my ride time. I felt a little bit less barfy as time went on, but honestly, still feeling pretty bad now... I don't know if solid foods are in my future today.

Wednesday 05/06: Off, unplanned sleep-in-age. I guess the Wednesday easy ride is fairly uninspiring, as this is the second one I've missed...

Thursday 05/07: 43.1 miles, 3:04:11 (14.1 mph), Angeles Crest to Red Box. Booyah! Redbox is the new Clear Creek. This was an awesome ride, I was super pleased. My first day of climbing couldn't have been better. I guess I'm still experiencing the Miracle of Training on the bike. Legs felt a little rusty, but breathing was totally under control, and I didn't even need granny gear. Came through Clear Creek at about 1:38, feeling pretty good still, so stretched out my IT band a little bit and rode up to Red Box (2:08). Even felt pretty comfortable on the descent, which is extremely rare for me. Red box always used to feel so far away, but I was really excited about how easy it was, and at ~ 3 hours is a totally feasible weekday ride.

Friday 05/08: Off, shots. Ate half of a mint chocolate chip/brownie icecream sandwich.... mmmmmm.... morbidly obese.....

Saturday 05/09: 80.69 miles, 5:40:28 (14.2 mph), GMR/GRR to Baldy Village, back on Baseline to Encanto Park with Peter. Wow, okay... GMR is not as easy as the Angeles Crest. I stubbornly insisted on making in in the 39/25 gear combo, but I wasn't flying the way I was on Thursday. Still felt pretty good until we missed the foodstop at the GMR/GRR/East Fork intersection... after which I felt positively horrendous. I did not remember that GRR was so long. I had 2 bottles of water and a giant gu at Baldy Village, and felt kind of okay going home on Baseline, but that last stretch back home on California was not easy. The last 5 miles of GRR was the first point this year that I've gotten to that "completely vanquished" point on the bike. I'd forgotten what that feels like, and honestly wasn't super amused to be reminded... I wonder if that could have been avoided with a gu at the top of GMR, but I guess I'll have to wait until next week to find out. Glad to be done! Peter and I went to watch an awesome 1500 race by KB and some delicious food with Will and Ruby afterwards.


Training this week: 302 miles, 19:18:29