High Season
Welcome to “high season” week 1: Pittsburgh Randonneurs Meanville Greenville 200k. If weather, equipment, fitness, and motivation all hold together, I’ll log six century rides over the next eight weeks.
This first weekend featured the longest ride of the summer: a 125-mile 200k with the Pittsburgh Randonneurs. It took place just four days after I returned from a week in Denver. I wasn’t sure whether I’d suffer more after losing fitness from time off the bike; or whether I’d benefit from the extra rest and any physiological adaptations from a week spent at altitude. Prolly a little of both…
Up at stupid o’clock for a 45-minute drive up to Bill’s house in Zelienople, where I got to meet his cats before setting out with four other randonneurs. Weather was absolutely perfect, with scattered clouds and temps climbing from 61° to 84° through the day.
RBA De’Anna kept a moderate but steady pace all day. The four stops were evenly-spaced at 30 miles per, which was a bit of a stretch for someone with only one bottle cage. However, we made up for that with surprisingly long rest stops (by randonneuring standards). Not being a RUSA member (see here), I didn't even bother getting my brevet card certified at the control points.
The route was scenic, especially if you like endless farmland. By the end of the ride, everything smelled and tasted of manure. But we saw two dozen or more Amish buggies out on the roads, presumably on their way to some top-secret Amish conclave.
The course was also very rolling. With 7,700 feet of climbing, it was the third most climbing I’ve done in a single ride in ten years-surpassed only by two other 200k rides, one of them my April Sandy Lake brevet.
I was strong through 80 miles, but then spent the next 37 miles yoyo-ing off the back of the group. In the hottest part of the day, with just 6 miles left to go I finally fell off and limped to the finish at a reduced pace, utterly wiped; but justifiably so, after ten hours in the saddle.
That was a good effort tho, as it restored both my acute and chronic training loads to the level I was at before a week off the bike in Denver. It also tallied as my seventh century (plus) of 2019, my second 200k of the year, and-so far as I can tell from my records-my 80th all-time ride of 100+ miles.
And also the first of as many as six centuries in an eight-week "high season”. Now it’s time for focused recovery in preparation for ride #2...