Road cycle (Wilier Cross ) 1:32:20 39.19 km (2:21 / km) +13m2:21 / km ahr:146 max:157 shoes: Specialized Comp mountain
A calm 12C dawn seemed like an engraved invitation for one more ride north before packing up the cross bike for the trip home. Distance is a bit short because I stopped the clock while taking some photos of small beach houses for sale that are smaller than my bike room.
Nice pace except south bound through ‘downtown’ Myrtle Beach dodging construction, tour buses and pedestrians wandering into the street at random location.
Road cycle long (Wilier Cross ) 1:39:00 38.49 km (2:34 / km) +14m2:34 / km ahr:145 max:161 shoes: Specialized Comp mountain
Ride your age stage 10a
Mrs wants to ride back through the woods, so I did a short session: whatever I could fit in before 10am.
Today waiting for 7C meant the wind was up for most of the ride. The tailwind/headwind differential was pretty dramatic. I meant to just go a comfortable pace with the tailwind and stay in the 140s into the headwind, but shortly after the turnaround I saw a little peloton of 3 racer boys and didn’t want to be going embarrassingly slow when they made thecturn and came to swoop past me.
I saw them again after I made the turn out of the wind and they only appeared to have gained 500-800m on me, so of course I felt compelled to milk the tailwind for a bit. I shot passed a solo rider who opted to catch my draft, staying right on my tail for a couple of kilometres. At that point I noticed I would be 10-15 minutes late if I did the whole loop, so got lazy and did smaller loops to avoid ending with 10km into the wind.
Nutrition: forgot my water, so none. Ok for a short ride.
1 PM
Mountain bike long (Vinnie) 2:00:16 30.73 km (3:55 / km) +21m3:54 / km ahr:112 max:134
Ride your age stage 10b - mission accomplished
I found an extension to the East Coast Greenway to take Mrs on. The extra 8km was mostly nice smooth asphalt and quite picturesque. The Starbucks we stopped at on the way back had virtually nothing to drink that wasn’t laced with caffeine so I had steamed coconut milk and ate the 1/2 pack of Clif Blocks I happened to shove in my pocket as emergency rations.
I waited until near high tide for it to warm to 9C. Wind was strong at 30-40km/hr. Enough to make me work much harder to minimize the drop in pace after the turnaround into it. This was most noticeable in how much longer it took my heart rate to get back down.
The wind has been up for two days and has made interesting mini dunes all along the beach so the surface frequently changed from hard pack to soft. The other thing to watch for was the large number of jelly fish that got stranded during the four days of especially high tides we had: 30-36” above normal.