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.