I figure we have a thread about our long rides. So let's get one for our
fast ones. I'll start.
After talking about how the century went, a lot of people asked me if I gave everything. I was honest and explained that I gave it a "solid training effort" nothing more, nothing less. I definitely didn't give it a "race effort". A couple of other cyclists at work scoffed today at lunch when I popped up the stats off of Motionbased and showed them the ride and claimed that that had to be balls out for me. So we made a deal, I would come home tonight after work and crank out my fast TT loop giving it a race effort.
So after getting up this morning, walking to the pool, swimming a mile with some tough intervals, walking home, doing a 30 min time trial on my CompuTrainer (11.10 miles @ 22.17 mph average), riding into work, working all day, and then riding back home, I was finally ready to "really" ride. I geared up and hit the road. Within 2 blocks I realized I forgot my sun glasses. Oh well! I was dumb enough to forget them, I could live through a ride without them.
The wind was blowing pretty good tonight, 10-12 mph or so. Not howling but definitely a factor. Too boot, my fast TT course is rolling hills and does several interconnected loops (you can see below in the pic). F'ueco if you have every done the Winters Road Race, then you know the English Hills are no jokes from a rolling perspective. The looping nature maximizes the wind impact since I pretty much would get hit by it from every angle at some point during the ride.
Once again, put the thoughts of the wind out of my mind and just let my legs do the work. I could tell it was going to be a good ride, but I can still say that I didn't give it an everything kind of effort aka I didn't out of the saddle climb the steeper hills or anything, but this was definitely a race level effort. My sub-150 hr ave shows that I still had a lot of room for more effort as I usually redline at about 180 bpm.
How'd it go? See below
