Road cycle long (Wilier Cross ) 2:38:00 [4] 61.2 km (2:35 / km) +91m 2:34 / km
ahr:142 max:157 shoes: Specialized S Works Mountain
Ride your age session 2
Brought to you by Bob Seeger
It was a chill 5C this morning so I waited to ride after going with Mrs. to get the cupboards stocked.
The weather channel was promising the worst wind scenario for the ride I wanted to do today: NW to start, then switching to SE. It would be a crap shoot when the shift came about.
I started NW to do my favourite ride in the area. At about 8km I caught up to where tomorrow's marathon was being set up. That made for a few slow spots, but I just took them as a pause from the wind. The wind wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday and only slowed my pace by 1.5-2 km/hr. at 17-20km the wind started to shift and gave me a brief tailwind as I reached the turnaround.
A 2 minute pause to let Mrs. know I was at the north end and heading over to Black Dog Running. As soon as I made the turn back I knew it was going to be a tough ride home. It was mostly a straight on head wind, which is less stressful than yesterday's cross winds, but still an exercise in leg strength. 12 km straight into it then the restful turn inland to Black Dog.
I stocked up on some nutrition, gave the old guy there a tour of the Wilier, which he seemed to think was the best bike ever. He encouraged me to ride behind the race tomorrow, since I'd already done the whole course. Hoka sponsered a dog aid station at the store, which was fun. I finished my power bar and declined Mrs. offer to pick me up so I could get my last 15km in.
The pause at the store freshened my legs more than I expected so I managed a nice pace into the wind back to the shore (about 3km), then fended off traffic that was much heavier than the time I normally ride along a 5 km stretch of highway. This was a bit inland so the wind wasn't too bad.
Back to the shore where the low rise beach houses gave no shelter from the wind. I decided it was a good time to call a cool down interval and just spun my legs at a comfortable effort. I shot past the house and returned with a strong tailwind pushing me at 30+km/hr at cool down effort.
I'll try to rest the legs tomorrow.