Road riding

Took some vaca time to ride with my wife. We never ride together anymore. It's always WWF tag team. I'll do a ride then rush home and tag her and she'll go out, or the other way around. The weather was great before a cold snap so we decided to get in our MOM training.

Tuesdays after a Sunday race are typically the worst day on my legs. So I was a little concerned. In addition, these longish road rides tend to run me through the ringer. Didn't get up early enough to really scarf either.

We did the first part of MOM. The 'easy' part. Yeah right. No easy around here. 70 miles. Once again totally underestimated my food requirements. By the time we were 4hrs into it I was already out of water/food. And this had included a store stop too.

John's Creek wasn't too bad, with the 36t/27 compact. OMG how I ever did this w/o it I don't know. Coming back on 42 to the car is 'supposed' to be easy. Except for the howling wind. I just wanted to get back to the car and was killing it. Stoked the legs were working well so late into the ride. The extra food/Edrink my wife gave me made the difference.

Hurting all over. My arms are just jello and my shoulders knotted. I've sort of been resenting these road training rides a little, as they seem somewhat counter to what is needed for MTB racing right now. But I always forget how hard they are. And anything that takes you out of your comfort zone is good I guess. Oftentimes it's too easy to get complacent on shorter rides and not go hard enough. But when you're still 15 miles from the car you pretty much gotta do something in order to get home.

Riding alone so much makes dealing with the wind a lot easier. You just get used to getting low and cranking away. My wife is a hoss btw. Several times I just let her pull and went along for the ride.

When we got home I took some Sportlegs. I rarely use the stuff post ride, but my goodness, within 45minutes ALL pain went away. They really do have a pain dulling affect. Speaking of which, this deadening feeling while good right now sort of bothered me at the beginning of the race this Sunday.

I'm thinking of skipping the dose taken at 1hr prior and just starting with a dose on the start line. This time I didn't like that dulled feeling off the start.

Food rundown
1st hr: 1 large bottle power bar drink
2nd hr: water + english muffin w PBJ + Little Debi Nutty Wafers
*Thanks John for telling me about these
3rd hr: 20 oz Gatorade + water and 2 Brown Sugar Pop Tarts
4th hr: Water + Soy Protein bar + half muffin w/PBJ
last stretch 1/4 bottle Gatorade

Legs strong for the most part but ebbed/flowed and felt the light headedness of the bonk come/go.

This whole riding /racing thing is pretty simple I'm learning. Think less, ride harder.