03/18/2006

At the beginning of the week the weather forecast for Saturday did not look good with wind and rain both being predicted and a high of 59.  After last week's 400k I had no desire to be out in the rain and cold again so soon, so I was considering riding a 40k Time Trial in Florence instead.  But by Friday weather.com was predicting a high in the 60s with a slight chance of a few showers between 10 am and noon.  That didn't sound too bad, so I decided to go ahead and ride.

I ran into Mike Sturgill at the registration line, guess he didn't get enough pain last weekend either!  I also ran into Joe and Karen Zazzera and we decided to ride together.  I was supposed to keep this ride as base miles again, keeping a steady relatively easy tempo, so I was glad to have some company.  We left about 10 minutes before the official start.  Unfortunately I turned on my Polar, but didn't start recording and missed the first 5 or 6 miles of data -- doh!  Karen pulled us up the first climb, which made for another nice start for me.  I decided to use my Trek 5200 because it has a triple chain ring and I put a 12x27 cassette on my Topolinos, so I was able to spin pretty easy up the climbs, getting out of the saddle occasionally to relieve saddle pressure.  For me out of the saddle climbing is like drinking tea with a Brit.  It requires grace, maybe even elegance (if you are good at it) and pinky fingers sticking out!

There are a couple good descents and since I don't have aerobars on this bike I was able to get in my super-tuck and fly down them, dropping Joe and Karen each time.  Karen was a little surprised because she doesn't normally get dropped on descents.  We actually made pretty good time and the fast guys from the start didn't catch us until we got into Miami.  We stopped at the SAG stop in Globe for a Porta-Potty and snack break.  I had half a PB&J, some orange slices and a couple oreo cookies.  Mmmm.

When we got going again Joe said he's never seen me ride so stable.  "Usually you ride off the front, look back and realize what happened."  Not two minutes after that I looked back and they were gone.  Don't know if they stopped for something or if I left the SAG too hard, but my heart rate was still relatively low, so I kept riding.  I looked back a couple times, but I couldn't tell if it was Joe and Karen or other cyclists behind me.  A couple guys passed me on the way to El Capitan, but had to stop for something on the way up.  Another two guys were about to pass me, but the incline got a little steeper, they stayed next to me for a minute, then dropped back.  I don't know what got into me at that point, maybe I was tired of just riding tempo, but I increased my pace and rode at lactate threshold for 10 minutes or so, which got me to the top pretty quick.

I didn't stop at the SAG at the top of El Capitan.  The wind had picked up some and I didn't want to stand there getting cold.  I took the descent pretty fast, but there was a head wind, so it wasn't as fast as I would have liked.  I caught a group of 4 right before we hit the canyon outside of Winkelman (actually I was close to catching them when they stopped so someone could relieve himself).  The wind started blowing pretty good through the canyon, reminiscent of the 300k in February, but it wasn't too bad just a little tedious.  I started thinking how nice it would be when I turned in Winkelman and got a tailwind.  Of course when I made the turn that wind was still there.  Felt like a head wind, but it was probably more of a cross wind.

I stopped at the SAG in Winkelman and had a ham and cheese sandwich, some more orange slices and another Oreo.  Hit the spot nicely!  Mike Sturgill and another Bullshifter were there when I pulled in and seemed to be taking their time, so I left before them.  The wind stayed most of the ride back, but I just tried to maintain a good pace.  Mike and that other Bullshifter passed me a few miles out of town, so I jumped on with them for a while.  Mike was making pretty good time using his aerobars.  But when we hit a climb outside of Kearney the guy Mike was riding with dropped off.  Mike had slowed down some, so I went to the front to pull him up the hill, but when I got to the top and looked back he had dropped off to pace his friend up the hill.

Just before the climb up to the open pit mine I started passing some of the metric century riders.  I wasn't too far up that climb when I heard behind me "Hey! MikeE!" and Ernesto Ramirez breezed by me making the hill look like it should have been flat!  He said Jeff was behind me and sure enough he breezed by me a few minutes later.  When he passed I looked down at my polar afraid that I was riding too hard, but I was still in an aerobic zone.  I'm actually pretty pleased with myself that I didn't give in to the temptation to jump on his wheel and kept my base miles, tempo pace up the hill!

I stopped at the last SAG that's about half way up that climb to fill a bottle, then started to mentally prepare myself for "End of the World" -- a 1.5 mile climb with a 10% grade - ouch!  The climb was slow, but really wasn't too bad.  I rode most of it out of the saddle in my 30x23, but did go down to my 30x27 a couple times to spin for a minute or two (but that meant I probably averaged around 5 mph up that climb!).  I went over the top without stopping and hit 57.6 mph, my high speed for the day, going down the other side.  The rest of the ride in is mostly descent with some rolling hills, so I just settled into a recovery pace and took my time to get to the finish.  Overall it was a nice day to ride and I think I pretty good.  My legs didn't even complain when I went up and down the stairs at home, so I must not have pushed myself too hard during the ride. :-)