Week of March 17...

Probably going to be an easy to moderate week for me this week. I want to do a re-test for my FTP on Saturday, which means taking Thursday and Friday off from riding. I have the day off today and it is beautiful here today! But, the wind is kicking up around 11mph with gusts up to 27mph! I so want to get out this morning and ride! What would the mentor or Jay say? HTFU. Yea, I know I should. I could probably ride this evening, but there's the possibility of taking my son out to dinner for his birthday, so I can't count on that. It's 10:25am. Time to woman-up and get my stuff together and go ride damnit!

So, today - going to head out when I finish this and ride the Frostbite 40mi route. Possible afternoon mtb ride with my friend Jay at Umstead.

Can I get a Hell Yes???!!!! I sucked it up and went out this morning around 11am to ride the Frostbite 40mi route. But, once I started, I just made the route up on the fly, depending on the wind. I hate the wind. But, I rode into it quite a bit. Rode out to Lake Wendell Rd/231 and headed towards Middlesex. Rode up Flower Hill 2x. I did much better on it this time - could have been that I didn't have many miles in my legs that made the difference...Left that and rode the Frostbite in reverse, out to Shoeheel and back around. Old Cletus told me to tell my 'husband' that he said Hi. LOL.

Got back to Archer's Lodge and I had around 43 miles...no way did I want to end at 43, so I thought I'd ride just a bit more and get 45....reached 45 and said, hell, just go on and get 50 in today. Ended up with 51.3 miles, 15.5mph average. A bit slow for me, but considering the wind, I'll take it.

I know one thing - my hydration was not good enough for this ride. I started to feel bad in my legs after about 2hrs and struggled a bit the remainder of the ride. I stopped several times to stretch and that seemed to help a lot. Only drank 2 bottles - 1 of Cytomax, 1 of water and 2 gels. Had a banana for breakfast. I didn't have enough to drink yesterday, maybe 90oz of water. I need to make sure that I get at least a gallon in before rides like this and a bit more pasta the evening before.

Kicking back right now with an Old Scratch Amber Ale and listening to a bit of Kid Rock....

Tomorrow, I'm going to go ride with The Hammers. I should be able to hang with them if I don't take any pulls or if I do pull it can only be very briefly. They ride at the kind of pace Andy & I rode the first 1.5hr of the Frostbite Tour. I can do that. Most likely, this ride will be in the high zone 3 or even a zone 4 ride for me.

Wednesday - not sure what I'll do...initially, the weather was going to be rainy, but now, it's changed to 26mph winds! Maybe it won't be so bad in the evening and I can get out for a zone 2 ride.

Damn that wind!!! /mad/ Suck it up!!! Go ride!