Logged 78 miles this week, which is my highest mileage week yet, although I'm not particularly proud of it. I cheated a bit by getting in an easy social 26 miles on the bike path with a coworker, which was a lot of fun but not much of a training ride. Then again, as Mr. Lady Roadie says, miles are miles.
What I AM proud of is yesterday's ride. We met my dad up in Carroll County and headed out for what I knew would be a hilly 40 miles. I'm so used to talking about that sort of mileage that it doesn't really mean much to me anymore, although while I was out it occurred to me I am not properly trained for it at all! We didn't get out until mid afternoon, and it was hot without much shade. There were some serious hills, and I hit a new max speed descending (38 mph). The problem with riding with my dad and Mr. Lady Roadie is that they are both naturally stronger than me (they're men, after all), plus they are training for a century and have put in much more time on the bike, so I basically can't keep up at all. They don't leave me in their dust, but it's very demoralizing when they are always several hundred feet in front of me no matter how hard I try to close the gap. (Sometimes they do let me catch up, or Mr. Lady Roadie will hang back with me). The good thing about riding with them is I push myself, and that's how you get stronger.
Between the heat, the hills I wasn't trained for and the demoralizing situation of not being able to keep up, I didn't have the mental fortitude I wish I'd had on the hills for the second half of the ride. There may have been some cursing. Still, I made it up all of them! The best part of this ride was the break we took at a convenience store 30 miles in, where I had a few bites of a PayDay which tasted better than anything I've ever eaten in my entire life (I was also sweating an obscene amount. These two facts may have been related). I LOVE eating on rides, guilt-free. The worst was, well, any one of three hills where I ended up cursing. The scenery was nice, but drivers were pretty awful in the area. We got yelled at a couple times, the only one of which I made out was when a driver shouted "BALL SACK" at us. Not sure what the intention was there, but I was so surprised I almost fell off my bike, and now I have a great new curse word to use on the hills.
Fell asleep early last night after inhaling dinner -- is it normal to be so hungry after just a 40 mile ride? This morning we headed out for an easy 13 on Beach Drive, and the hills in the neighborhood on the way home nearly killed me. My legs felt like we had only just finished up the 40 miles. Also, I realized I should've used chamois cream on the 40 miler.
This was a good training week, and I might try out the group ride again this week because of it!
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