Over reaching a little

First long/hard road ride of the season. My fellow Morris convert and MWC FTJ in crime chose a rough course.

My house to Lick Run to the River to the MOM course: Up the backside (Rt 613) then the Clover Hollow Loop (601/602/603/604) then back on 460 home.

A little over 4 hours. This is very hard 4hr ride. There seemed to be a light wind in our faces the whole time too. It was perhaps a little over my head. Probably better to gradually work up to it. Maybe 3hrs one week. and easier 4 the next. etc..But you gotto strike when you can.

Normally, I'd be focusing more on MSP right now and then starting to get into some hard XC riding. However since we'll be doing Mountains of Misery this year I've got this monkey on my back to get in the miles and to get used to the kind of climbs like the 613. My wife has a great training plan for MOM that progressively builds up to an 80mile ride prior to the MOM century.

The compact crankset felt good on this climb, easier than in the past. I'd thought I'd blown my time out of the water but in looking at some past logs in March 2005 I'd done it just a minute slower. But after 100 miles on the legs I know that compact (especially with the 34t) is going to be nice.

I always forget that I need to adjust my eating when on long road rides as compared to 2-3hr XC riding/racing. I need a lot, a lot more food when on the road. Provided that a good pre event eating plan has been followed (4-5g carb/kg 3-4hrs before) I can get away with 1 small bottle of energy drink/hour. On shorter road rides performed at high intensity this can work too.

200 grams carbs 4 hrs before the ride, and then on this 4hr road ride I went through 2 large bottle of power bar drink, 2 potatoes, started to bonk, then 1 PBJ, started to bonk again, then at the store got a mid sized Gatorade and small package of doughnuts and was bonking again by the time we got home.

The other thing that surprizes me is how you can be at ready to just explode but then sit in the draft for a little bit and you're all better and ready to rock. On the mountain bike it seems that once I implode that it's much more difficult to recover back. Especially on terrain like we have here. This is why I'm so focused on pacing properly in mtb races and try to be careful to not go so hard that I end up going backwards and never recovering.

What a great ride. It felt good to get one like this under my belt. Hat's off to my friend John who is becoming a monster. We may be only a sample size of 2, but our results based on the time we put in indicate that Morris is the shi*t.

Unfortunately, when I got home both kids were home sick with the Flu. My wife had to go pick them up from school..within a few hours of each other.