Week 5

Date
February 5th, 2012

Distance
100 miles

Time
6:24:39

Route Map/Profile

Two out-and-back sections: one to Pyramid Lake and the other towards Verdi.

Weather

I started around 3 and the weather was nice. After dark the temperature dropped rapidly. It was in the mid 30s, but it felt a lot colder than that.

Picture

Sunset on Pyramid Highway

Ride Report
The whole weekend was a comedy of errors for me. I had a nice ride planned in Tuscon, but I forgot to pack something important with my bike- my crank. I was having trouble getting on a flight from TUS to PHX, so I decided to rent a car and drive instead. The drive was supposed to take 2 hours, which was cutting things very, very close. I sped my way to Phoenix and made up quite a bit of time. I got lucky and made it on the bus from the rental car center to the terminal right before it was leaving. I was in the (long) security line 45 minutes prior to my flight, so I was feeling good. Problem is, I was in the wrong security line.

I ran as fast as I could from the security line to the gate. It was sort of like riding an unknown climb. Around every corner I would look up at the gates wondering, "Is this the end?" When it wasn't, I wondered how long I could keep up the pace. It turns out that the gate was at the end of the hall, as far away from the wrong security line I went through as possible. My running pace was way too high for the distance I had to cover and if this were a climb I would have blown up and been dropped. I made it to the gate right as they were getting ready to scratch my name from the list. After I sat down my lungs were burning big time. It's early in the cycling season and I haven't been doing a ton of intervals yet, which was painfully obvious in that moment.

I made it back to Reno with enough time to get in a couple of hours in the daylight. The rest was in the dark, which wasn't too bad. The moon was almost full, so I could still see the snow on the mountains in the distance.