Until this last weekend, it had been nearly a month since I had done a long ride. When I had the flu about a month ago, I ended up with a sinus infection. For my Eiseman hut trip, I was on antibiotics and felt Ok. A couple days after I was finished with the antibiotics, the sinus infection came back. Now I’m just over 10 days into my 2nd round of antibiotics.
With Texas Hellweek only 2 weeks away, my coach scheduled this last weekend as 3 back to back long days. Fortunately the weather even cooperated and it was nice all weekend. My wife was out of town Friday night through Sunday afternoon but her parents were able to watch the girls during the day. At night and in the morning, I got to play Mommy and Daddy.
Friday I took off work and met up with the Verizon (formerly MCI) lunch ride. When I worked at Agilent, I used to ride with them quite a bit but now it’s hard for me to get over there. As always there were some attacks and sprints. I then went out and rode through Black Forest to Peyton and then came back in US 24. That gave me 93 miles and 4662 feet of climbing.
Saturday I started out with the 10:00 Acacia group ride. There was a large turnout and I’d guess there were about 70 riders. There seemed to be a lot of riders that weren’t used to riding in a group. I really thought there’d be a crash. On Link Road I got dropped when I didn’t realize the 3 guys in front of me had let a small gap open. I tried bridging but couldn’t. I was pretty down on myself for not being able to hang.
I had to keep telling myself I had done 93 miles the day before and that they’re training for short, fast races. At the group turn around, Tim joined me on his recumbent and we went out to Hanover and Ellicott. I finished out the ride with a trip through Manitou to get 110 miles and 3501 feet of climbing.
Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day with the temperature topping out around 60 degrees. I rode down Hwy 115 to Florence and then back. On the way down I had a pretty good headwind. I was afraid it would shift but I got a tailwind on the way back. I got in another 97 miles and 4131 feet of climbing.
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Tags: Bike, Colorado Springs, training
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What was a typical average speed for your rides?
This year is RAAM maintainging the requirement that riders have at least a 12MPH average (including rest stops?)?
Botched
Right now I’m averaging between 15 and 16 mph just counting the bike time on my longer rides if I’m by myself. I need to get that up into the 17 – 18 mph range. In the 2003 Fireweed 400, I averaged 17.6 mph including time off the bike. I was only off the bike 12 minutes out of a little over 22 hours.
The Enduro category of RAAM has a 12 day 2 hour cut-off time which comes out to be about 10.3 mph. That’s what it’s been the last few years. The Traditional category goes back to the 48 hours after the winner cut-off.