Monday, February 16, 2009

Me, I am NOT an endurance racer

Well, I'm trying to be a bit more organized in my training this year. Last year I rode a lot, but nothing very organized and the race results showed it. Very average, and even a DNF.

So the idea this winter is each week to do one long ride, one of intervals, and one of "sweet spot" riding if I can. So yesterday was my long ride day.

I went to Connellsville and rode to Ohio Pyle. Couldn't remember what the trail was made of. Turned out to be hard packed and very finely crushed limestone. My road bike turned out to be fine, but the ground went from fairly well packed, to a big soggy and slow.

Anyway, rode three hours and realized that in no way I can be an endurance rider. From the beginning that little mental dialogue was happening. You know, "Come on, why are we doing this? We can just turn around now and grab a big mac, no one will know." It only gets worse from there. I remember watching 24 hour solo thinking I could probably do that some day. Oh, that's a knee slapper. Whatever in the world was I thinking?

And of course my mp3 player quit working 15 minutes into the ride, sigh. I really wish I would've had my camera though; there was some really great scenery - snow, ice, waterfalls, mountain laurel.

In the end, I was really glad I did the ride. Legs feel tired in that good sort of way. And I'm hoping that these rides really pay off this spring. Well, for that I have to wait and see.

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