Long Ride

So in my prep for two half-ironmans, one in June and one in July, and ultimately Ironman in August, last week I completed my longest ride of the year - a whopping four hours. I always find I ride better mentally after not being in the saddle for a couple days. Sort of renews the interest and excitement because going out too many days in a row just drains me all around.

The Cramerotti tri-frame I've been riding the past few years usually makes my back ache if I push too hard too long in the aerobars. I figured today would be the usual: feel strong for around ninety minutes and then need to stretch every ten after that. Don't ask me why but I felt great the whole way. I had a tailwind going east and did a 45 minute tempo ride and figured I'd get crushed as I turned around to come back west. There was a bit of a headwind on the return trip but it was going more north-east so I didn't get the usual brunt of it. I was powering into it and my average speed didn't drop very much. I ended up with 132 km over the four hours and having been aiming for around 120 I was pretty happy.

Of course Tuesday's ride sent me right back to reality. I was set up to do a two hour bike and a thirty minute run as five minutes easy, twenty hard, and five easy to finish. I felt awesome as I went out along the rural roads of south Langley but again had the ever-present east-blowing tailwind. I knew this time I would get hit hard on the way back so I turned around a few minutes before one hour. It's a good thing I did as there were lots of uphills coming back and the wind was the worse I'd ridden in in a long time. I was grateful for the dump trucks flying by me and giving me a few seconds of pull in their huge wakes.

Not sure if it's the run I did the day before, being tired, or a different type of positioning when riding into the wind but something makes my motivation drop and I want to just stop. I guess tomorrow I'll try riding north/south and hopefully get less wind. Living on an western-most point, it's tough not to do ANY east or west riding. Oh well, train for the worst and hopefully race the best.