Saturday, March 27, 2010

Fifty Miles To Nowhere: A Change In Plans


As far back as Wednesday, Mongo was excited about the possibility of being able to ride five days in a row. I had all day Thursday, Friday evening, Saturday morning, all day Sunday, and to top it off, the 23/2300 Hammerfest on Monday night. It hasn't really worked out that way so far.

It rained all day on Thursday...for about sixty percent of the time. I could have ridden at nine a.m. when I planned to leave, but I kept convincing myself that the rain was about to hit. And it finally did...three hours later. The truth is that I really hate riding in the rain and probably subconsciously sabotaged myself.

On Friday it was finally all systems go. I did the Smyrna Bicycles Friday Night Ride...a twenty five mile jaunt on the Silver Comet Trail. It's ridden at a social/recovery pace, with the last four miles open to racing if anyone feels like it. When Mongo has done this ride in the past, I'm usually on Li'l Pony Express for training purposes. Yesterday was no exception. On this flat'ish track I can keep up with anyone, and with the addition of the Speed Bars on LPE, I'm even faster. I was looking forward to the final few miles when I could mix it up with the fellas.

Here's what happened. With about three miles to go I got a casual fifty yard lead on the group...and took off! I settled into the Speed Bar drops, shifted into the 44-11, and never looked back. I'm still not sure how hard the peloton chased me, but they were several hundred yards behind at the finish. I rode about as hard as I could, and in the process, tweaked my left knee. This injury, in turn, affected my riding plans for today.

I had two very appealing cycling options for this morning. Either go to the mountains and ride some "gaps" with my fellow teammates, or do the Enemy Bike Shop Ride solo. As Mongo is fond of saying concerning my uphill abilities..."I'm a lover not a climber", so even though the day was sunny and the mountains are beautiful, my game is more suited to the Enemy Bike Shop Ride and it's race-like atmosphere. The course fits my skills as a rouleur and maximizes what I'm trying to do with my "Cat 5 Domination" training. As it turned out, I did neither.

I woke up at seven this morning. Early enough to do the "gaps" at nine, or the Enemy Bike Shop Ride at ten. My knee would have none of it. I made a split second decision that if I was going to be able to ride the Hammerfest on Monday, I couldn't risk injuring my knee any further by doing either of these strenuous rides...then I went back to sleep for two hours.

At about nine'ish I got up, had some coffee, and decided not to be a pussy. If I wasn't going to ride hard, then I was going to ride long. I took some Advil, kitted up, got on the Sub-19, and did fifty miles at an 18+ average. The knee didn't hurt much, and I even got to smack down a dude wearing a full Rabobank kit on a Cervelo with Zipp's and a Powertap.

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