Back to Back Rides

I was talking to Chris Beriau about the MS Ride that she is doing in late June.  It is a 100 mile ride on Saturday followed by a 75 mile ride on Sunday.  Ooof.  She says it is a good training ride.  Clearly she is better shape then me.  And motivated.  And maybe crazy.  She was giving me all sorts of advice on how to build up my endurance.  What stuck with me the most was that I need to ride back to back days.  Going out on tired legs and still cranking up some hills and putting in the miles.

So here I go.

Thursday I rode home from work.  Now, I only work until 2PM, but Harry gets off the bus at 2:50.  That does not leave me much time.  So it is was a straight shot home.  With 3 big hills:  Lower Gore (anyone who has ever done the Danskin or the She-Rox knows this is a bear), Thompson Speedway (a long hill more then halfway through the ride) and Thompson Hill (not bad, but near the end).  I discovered that I made a rookie mistake before I even left the building at work.  I had no water bottle.  Ugh.  Moment of panic.  I frantically searched around Rob's vehicle to try and find a water bottle.  Nothing.  I had to resort to sticking my Nalgene in my back shirt pocket.  You might think this is no big deal, but it means I can't just drink when I need. I have to stop, unclip, unscrew the Nalgene, drink and then work to get it back in my shirt pocket.  So with my time constraints, I limited myself to 3 stops:  the top of each hill.  Going up the first hill, I dropped my chain.  And I didn't panic.  More importantly, I didn't fall!  This is a big improvement for me.  The rest of the ride was uneventful.  Breezy, but uneventful.

Friday, I met my girls down at the dam for the first ride/run brick of the season.  My legs were tired and achy.  We rode down Ravenelle over those big rolling hills and over broken pavement.  Note to self:  rolling hills with broken pavement sucks.  Don't do that again.  After the ride, we ran 1.5 miles.  I was glad to be done. 

So there it is.  My first bike commute home.  My first back to back ride.  My first ride/run brick.  Big things happening here!! 


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Stats:

Thursday:
14.36 miles
13.6 MPH average
29.3 max speed

Friday:
14.50 miles
12.9 MPH average
31.8 max speed

~Cori