Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Riding a Highway to Hell - 100+ degree bike ride

I was spoiled all day in my moderately A/C'd work space and was able to talk myself into denial about the inferno that was waiting for me outside. I got off work and headed to my car and BOOM I was hit with this massive wall of heat. Quickly the A/C kicked in and once again I was safe in my world of denial.
I received txt's from some of my friend's saying "don't do it" but what else is new? There will always be people who play it safe and then those who take risks. I'm a risk taker. Life would be too boring if we always played it safe. Would I gain fitness from this workout? Probably not. Then why do it? We learn from struggle. So I may just be reminded that I'm an idiot, but I can happily say I took away much more then that :) This was another workout that was focused on mental outlook.

I met the peps from the PDX tri club at 6:15pm and we headed out into the West Hills. It was hot, my car temp read 105 before we left. I managed to get down approx 900 mg of sodium within 2hrs before the ride. It was a bit depressing as I looked and felt like the Pillsbury Dough boy but I know it needed to be done. The ride started out climbing and it was hot. I kept telling myself it was all a state of mind. Physically I was suffering in an inferno of hell but my mind had me bathing on nude beach sands of Monaco....hehe, I was delusional - at least it was happy delusion :) We hit Thompson and I took my time and climbed up. It was kind of amusing to watch a guy attack the hill only to have me pass by sitting in my saddle over and over and over again :) efficiency is key. Once we reached Skyline out fearless leader Paul treated us with ice packs and water. He did the whole ride with a massive backpack carried with ice and water just to make sure we all stayed cool and hydrated - now that is an leader if I've ever seen one. Once we all got our ice we headed along the Skyline Rollers (which felt amazing!) down Old Corneliues Pass and then hit climb #2 Old Germantown road. First time I ever did this climb. I liked it, it was long and gradual with a few up out of the saddle peaks. I was rather surprised at my energy level once we crested. I was still on top of my game. By now I had consumed another 700 mg of sodium to bring my total somewhere around 1600mg, and the bloat was gone :) We rolled along Skyline, down Thompson back to AL. My car temp now displayed 90 - yet I was no longer hot :)

This ride was highly successful. I went into it prepared yet ready to be humbled and I finished standing tall with a giant smile on my face. Although the title is "Riding a Highway to Hell" I was "Climbing a Highway to Victory" :D

Ride data
27.72 miles with over 2000ft of elevation gain
Ride duration 1:50:41
Max HR 179 (I kept talking my HR down) , Avg HR 155
Max watts 422, normalized average watts 169 - yay baby!, avg watts 142

3 comments:

Rainmaker said...

Nicely done. I hear ya - it was damn hot out there today for mine, but you guys are slightly warmer than us up in Seattle. yikes!

Britt said...

You will be oh so glad you did these rides/runs in the heat if it's hot at IMC let me tell you. I was driving to E.WA just to get these temps for my last race in preparation :)

Good Job!

Unknown said...

Last night at a Phoenix dog park your twin walked up. She looked just like you, and even had compression socks on. I told my wife, "I think I read that girls blog." That was probably a mistake.