Week 17

Date
April 22, 2015

Distance
100 miles

Strava Link
Week 17

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Ride Report 

I had to travel to IND this weekend, which meant I had to squeeze in this ride before work on Wednesday morning. I could see the rain rolling in towards the end of the ride, but with the early start I was able to stay dry.

Rain on the way

I had to go the whole weekend without riding, but I had 3 solid weeks in April of back-to-back rides, so a little time off is probably a good thing.

Week 16

Date
April 18, 2015

Distance
200 miles

Strava Link
Week 16

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Ride Report 

The weather was nice and there was no wind to worry about, so I decided to do a double this weekend. The route was flat and simple: an out-and-back on 395. My main goal for the day was to beat 12 hours.

Things were going pretty well early and I was on pace to reach the goal. Then I got a flat tire around mile 70. It took me about 10 minutes to fix the flat and get rolling again. 10 minutes is pretty slow, isn't it? I guess I never realized how slow I was until I started riding with GPS and could see exactly how long I was stopping. The slow tube change meant that my first hundred miles took 6:01:14. That's close enough to a 12-hour pace, but it's tough to ride the second hundred miles at the same pace as the first hundred miles.

Near the turnaround point

I rode the second half about as fast as I could without blowing up. I was fighting a little bit of a crosswind, but nothing too serious. Things were really touch and go up until the last 30 minutes. By that point I only had to maintain a 15mph average for 30 minutes, so I relaxed and slowed down a little. The pressure to break 12 hours ended up being a good thing. It kept my mind occupied and made the time pass faster.

I ended up finishing in 11:48 with 25 minutes of stopped time. I'm pretty happy with that result. I've been doing a lot of back-to-back days this year, but haven't really done a single long ride. My legs felt dead Saturday night and Sunday morning, but I was able to squeeze in 100 miles on Sunday and felt better than expected.

Week 15

Date
April 12, 2015

Distance
103 miles

Strava Link
Week 15

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Ride Report 

I did another back-to-back and this was the second day. My legs didn't feel so great before the ride, but they loosened up pretty quickly. I had a decent speed going on the first half of the ride and then things slowed down on the ~30 mile stretch of US 50. It was one of those days when I felt like I had a headwind in both directions.

50

Week 14

Date
April 5, 2015

Distance
103 miles

Strava Link
Week 14

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Ride Report 

It was a cold and windy weekend, but I managed to fit in back-to-back centuries. Saturday was in the 10-25mph wind range, but the wind didn't really pick up until around 11:00 or so, allowing me a few hours to relax a little. Sunday was a different story. I woke up around 6:00 and the wind was already blowing hard. Sunday's winds were more in the 20-30mph range. I did laps around Washoe lake so I wouldn't have to spend too much time at once riding into the wind.

The disappearing Washoe Lake

Washoe Lake is disappearing before our eyes and is supposed to be completely dry by summer. Here's a picture from a similar spot in December, 2012.

Washoe lake, December 2012