A week off not by choice -but....

Well, the weather this week did a number on me. Last weekend I had a pretty successful "Raven Rock Ramble" ride of 65 miles. I had great intentions ( you know what they say about the road to hell is paved with) of riding 3 to 4 shortish rides this week, but it showered or thunder stormed every day this week and alas no weekday rides. The end result is I had a bunch of "stored" energy to use up on the weekend. So, yesterdays plan------GO LONG!! I took a route that I had done a couple of times before up to the north. It really gets out into the country and is a great distance when you are trying to build some serious miles. The weather was VERY humid for this early in the season. I decided that I would try to beat the heat by starting out early. By 7:30 am I was on the road. I had a 17mph or above average for 2 hours 22 minutes and then it all kind of came apart. The heat punched up and the hills and time in the saddle started to wear me down. I am thinking in hindsight, maybe I was a bit "too" excited to get out and ride and kind of burned myself out too early in the ride, as opposed to evening out the effort throughout the whole ride. Lesson learned. The wind averaged 14 to 17 mph for the return in my face so not only was that a good "test" but it built strength and and gave character but still slowed my average pace considerably. 

One of the purposes of yesterdays rides was to test out some new equipment. I must say that this part of the ride was a pretty significant success. Early in the week I stopped into All Star Bikes and had my new rear "cassette" and derailleur and chain installed. This was a special order from All Star as the cassette is normally used on a Santana Tandem bike. The range on the cassette is from a 11 to a 34. That 34 is like a PIE PLATE. I was thinking to myself "Self- if that doesn't get up up the slopes of Colorado, you better not go at all." What a change! With that range on it makes going up STEEP hills not quite as much a insurmountable challenge. There is some minor shifting issues when I am down in the lowest cogs on the cassette, but I plan to work on that option.  The second thing that I tried was my new "fanny pack" . Pretty cool. I carried a Peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana in it to simulate carrying something back there and after about 15 miles, I forgot it was even there. This will come in handy when on either Ride the Rockies or Cycle Oregon when you start out with arm and leg warmers and potentially other gear and then as the day gets warmer, you have to "shed" to keep your body temperature at a reasonable level. This should work out just "dandy", as this is different in the previous times that I put a "trunk" on my bike and that kind of threw off the weight and balance of the bike, but it was an option to have "storage" on the bike.

So, today going to do a 30 mile ride  to stretch things out and see what a longish ride backed by a "shortie" feels like----Great Practice.!! 

One other significant finding came about this week. Last weekend's 65 miler and the previous weekend's 100 miles brought about an important fact---that is my BACK needs work. About 1/2 way through both rides my back started to significantly hurt. This is not for any reason other than I have been neglecting working on strengthening my abs and back. I found a great solution for that this week while it was raining. I stopped by Dicks Sporting Goods and purchased a "Workout Ball" and used it each day this week with exercises learned at the YMCA. With my back weakened by my surgery 4 years ago, and no strengthening , after about 2 1/2 hours on my bike, I get screaming pain in my lower back that can only be stopped by getting off the bike of doses of Advil (aka "workout candy"). Well, unless I did something about my abs and back, I would never make it through the entire 380 miles of Ride the Rockies. Solution-USE THE BALL or from one of my favorite movies "BE THE BALL, DANNY!" Result: My back felt tired after yesterday's 75 miles and little over 4 hours on the bike but not enough to even mandate using Advil to kick the pain!! Yahoo. Note to self----Keep using the ball and things will go well. 

Next on the agenda for preparation: A "practice" ride through the mountains on the "Three Mountain Metric" course on Saturday of next week: 74 miles 8600 feet of climbing--oh yeah, a pretty good tester!! But it will set me up well....I will report back after that.