Got a little time to sleep in this morning with a call to action at 9am. Last year, today's ride was in the pouring rain (still one of the scariest days of my life...go read my blog about it) so it was nice when today turned out great. It was a little foggy right when we left, but not for very long - maybe 15 minutes.
The actual ride was amazing. Kept up a nice steady pace the whole time and spent a lot of time changing gears and just getting more comfortable with my road bike. There were times when I actually was really enjoying myself (usually I am pretty tense when I ride). I did have a few nervous moments - but overall, I felt really good the whole time.
Here is me at 32.5k at Allen's (I will write more about Allen's on Friday) - see the smile?
I admit, I was a bit pleased that we managed to stay with the full "C" Group - rather than 3 of us breaking off into a "D" group. I feel like that vouches for some of my improvements over the week! :) Actually managed an average pace of about 24k an hour which is pretty good for an "easier" ride...although no doubt the drafting had a lot to do with it. I expect 24k an hour on my own would've felt a lot harder.
Here's a picture of our whole group!
Got back to resort with my watch reading 2:56 and my mileage at 67.something - so decided to do a loop of the resort because I wanted it to be over 70. And since Coach Mark had 3 hours in my schedule - well, I figured the 4 minute gap was a good excuse to keep riding to get the last bit of mileage. After taking a wrong turn - I actually ended up doing a total of 72.16k....which is my longest ride ever - beating out my longest ride ever from last year at camp which was 67k I think.
Now - throughout this ride, one of my shoes refused to lock to the pedal properly because I'd somehow managed to screw up the cleats (more like shear off some of it) while stopping. So I had that going for me for a good 85% of the ride...annoying, but hey, it didn't affect my riding at all - so all was fine.
Got back to the camp house and immediately changed into running shorts and my running shoes and guzzled some water since I don't drink enough on the bike since I can't get at my water bottle when I am moving - and then got onto the road for my brick run within 4 minutes. Not a bad transition, I don't think!
Interestingly, running off the bike doesn't bother me very often. I think it's because I find biking so stressful that running, even on tired legs is a pleasure and a reward. After all, it means I am pretty much home free.
I didn't look at my watch since it was supposed to be easy to moderate - and I was hot (that is not a complaint...I liked the heat!)...but when I did glance down as I was getting close to my 20 minutes (and zig-zagging in front of my house to get the time in...got to love that) - turns out my average pace was 5:05. That shocked me. Further analysis showed my km paces as 5:06, 5:13, 4:49, and 4:56 (over .93k).
When I got back to the camp house - I took a quick 15 minute dip in our pool just to get cool (it was nice!) before eating lunch.
In the afternoon, a few of us went to a bike shop so I could buy new cleats (someone else did as well) - and then we went to an outlet mall with a Pearl Izumi store. Picked up a nice running shirt and pair of shorts for a really good deal!
We then met up with a bunch of other folks from camp for dinner at a sushi restaurant (I had very good veggie tempura instead) - and finished off at home with a dessert of tasty brownies.
Lessons learned today?
- I honestly believe I am going to be able to do the Niagara Falls half iron in September. Today's ride was only 18k short of the bike - and my excellent run - while a heck of a lot shorter - was a good indicator to me that I really will be able to do it come the day, especially with Coach Mark's help.
- Doctor Pepper during a ride is the best thing ever. It powered me from 32.5k to the end and right through the brick run. I need to remember that!
- I really am not very good at following directions. I took a wrong turn twice while biking and then running around the resort. ::laugh:: Ah well! :) I knew I'd get to where I was going eventually!
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