Spokes'n'Spurs 2012 ride report.
Whee, first charity ride of 2012, and it was great fun!
Ended up doing the entire ride, and the run, with Pam, and it was delightful to catch up with her, and to actually have a riding and running partner! I've done so many of my workouts alone for so long now, it felt foreign to actually be with someone.
The day started out really foggy as we drove to Liberty Hill, but it burned off quickly and it was gorgeous for the ride. And warmed up quickly once the sun came out, but it didn't matter much on the bike.
We started out with me and Pam, Jeff, Eva, Julie, Nicki, and two other TriZones people I didn't know, Nancy and Roy. Jeff was having a rough day, so after a few times of dropping him accidentally and then waiting for him at rest stops, he finally said just to go on and he'd see us at the end. The rest of the gang we ended up leap frogging with the entire day.
Pam has been Ironman training for a bit longer than I have this season, and that combined with her new tiny cranks meant she was making me work the entire time to keep up with her. But it's exactly what I need right now, to be pushed out of my comfort zone on the bike, and ultimately, even though we were chatting and enjoying ourselves the whole time, we ended up averaging 16.3ish mph. (Roughly the same average speed I was all impressed with myself for doing last year, except then I rode 20 miles shorter.) That's super fast for me for a training ride. I was happy.
Also we saw a baby cow right at the fence on a very small and narrow road, and he looked up at us and mooooooooed. My favorite part of the ride, for sure.
Also there were a lot of wildflowers out there.
And hills.
The last few miles with the steep uphills, the headwind and the horrible gravel on the road in that somehow I hadn't noticed on the way out, were by far the longest part of the ride, but we pushed in and stowed our bikes to go run. (Meanwhile, Matt had already finished his ride AND his run.)
Headed back out for the run and discovered.. oh, my.. it was hot. And sunny. Huh, exactly like last year. And I remembered how miserable that course was last year, with no shade. But we just put our heads down and gutted it out. Pam hadn't brought water, so we stopped at the aid station, which also had no shade. And we drank. And we dumped water over our heads. And generally felt like dying. But we kept running out, until we were 20 minutes out. Paused a second to breathe in the shade, then back in. At least we had some wind on the way back in. Stopped at the water again. And then we got to the 1 mile to go sign. That mile took like 0.25 milliseconds when we did it on the bike. It took 0.25 light years when running. We discussed the phenomenon wherein you have to balance feeling tingly and light-headed and trying to just get DONE already. Yeah, sorta passy-outty. Not a great feeling.
But we did our 40 minutes! And our miles were all low 9s and high 8s, for a 9:02 average. Not too shabby at all, given the conditions and it being one of my first bricks of the season, and riding hard for the ride!
Very happy with how strong I'm feeling so early in the season. Hoping to continue that trend.
Ended up doing the entire ride, and the run, with Pam, and it was delightful to catch up with her, and to actually have a riding and running partner! I've done so many of my workouts alone for so long now, it felt foreign to actually be with someone.
The day started out really foggy as we drove to Liberty Hill, but it burned off quickly and it was gorgeous for the ride. And warmed up quickly once the sun came out, but it didn't matter much on the bike.
We started out with me and Pam, Jeff, Eva, Julie, Nicki, and two other TriZones people I didn't know, Nancy and Roy. Jeff was having a rough day, so after a few times of dropping him accidentally and then waiting for him at rest stops, he finally said just to go on and he'd see us at the end. The rest of the gang we ended up leap frogging with the entire day.
Pam has been Ironman training for a bit longer than I have this season, and that combined with her new tiny cranks meant she was making me work the entire time to keep up with her. But it's exactly what I need right now, to be pushed out of my comfort zone on the bike, and ultimately, even though we were chatting and enjoying ourselves the whole time, we ended up averaging 16.3ish mph. (Roughly the same average speed I was all impressed with myself for doing last year, except then I rode 20 miles shorter.) That's super fast for me for a training ride. I was happy.
Also we saw a baby cow right at the fence on a very small and narrow road, and he looked up at us and mooooooooed. My favorite part of the ride, for sure.
Also there were a lot of wildflowers out there.
And hills.
The last few miles with the steep uphills, the headwind and the horrible gravel on the road in that somehow I hadn't noticed on the way out, were by far the longest part of the ride, but we pushed in and stowed our bikes to go run. (Meanwhile, Matt had already finished his ride AND his run.)
Headed back out for the run and discovered.. oh, my.. it was hot. And sunny. Huh, exactly like last year. And I remembered how miserable that course was last year, with no shade. But we just put our heads down and gutted it out. Pam hadn't brought water, so we stopped at the aid station, which also had no shade. And we drank. And we dumped water over our heads. And generally felt like dying. But we kept running out, until we were 20 minutes out. Paused a second to breathe in the shade, then back in. At least we had some wind on the way back in. Stopped at the water again. And then we got to the 1 mile to go sign. That mile took like 0.25 milliseconds when we did it on the bike. It took 0.25 light years when running. We discussed the phenomenon wherein you have to balance feeling tingly and light-headed and trying to just get DONE already. Yeah, sorta passy-outty. Not a great feeling.
But we did our 40 minutes! And our miles were all low 9s and high 8s, for a 9:02 average. Not too shabby at all, given the conditions and it being one of my first bricks of the season, and riding hard for the ride!
Very happy with how strong I'm feeling so early in the season. Hoping to continue that trend.