First Long Ride

Yesterday was the first time this year where I have ventured beyond the 3-hour mark in any ride.  I've had a few two-a-days that have pushed me into that range but nothing all at once.  Yesterday was a good test of where my fitness is and for this time of year I am satisfied enough.  I start my official LW Coaching 100-miler training plan March 21st with a target date in June for The Bailey Hundo, I've pretty much been winging the training up to this point.  I will have a few shorter  50 and 60 mile races between now and then that I plan to train through and measure progress.  As for yesterday's ride, It all started Friday evening around 9:45pm with a txt from Ben (a.k.a "The Midwest Wonder" ) that went something like this:

Ben drove up at 4:30am and bummed a bottle of CarboRocket off me before we got under way, lights a blazin'.  He also brought along a shiny new Trek Top Fuel 9.8 and proceeded to pound me into the dirt with it over the course of the next few hours.  All said and done, we put in a good 3.5 hours and then some.  Although there aren't a lot of large hills in my backyard we managed to hammer out 3600ft in elevation gain over 41 miles.  Looking back at the stats my HR averaged out in zone 4 which means pretty much race-pace for the duration.  Like I said, I'm happy with the ride and where my fitness is.  It was a little depressing to watch my riding partner hammer up climbs, and bunny hop over stuff the last 30 min when I was just hanging on to get home.  We had a discussion on 29" v.s.  26" on our ride a few days before and I think he was trying to prove a point.

I'll be back again for more.