more century crap

Hey, look...a route map!

The dark side: The course closes at 3:00 pm, per the map (though the flyer says 5:00?). Which means that I need to finish in 8 hours. if I factor in an hour for rest stops (between 5 & 10 minutes at each), my average speed would have to be between 15 and 16 mph. My current average speed is around 14 mph. Hopefully, my training, the cooler fall weather, and the hill descents can boost my speed up enough to finish by 3:00.

The bright side: The 110-mile route is actually the 87-mile route plus the 23-mile route. So, if I am running turtle-slow by the first time I roll through the start/finish line, I could just call it at 87 miles. Ditto if I'm keeping up a good speed, but the thought of going 23 more miles makes me want to die.

Overall, I don't think it looks too bad. Of course, you can't really see hills on that map, and I know there are going to be some. I've ridden that 42-mile route (or a similar one) twice, and remember some 4-mph climbs...not fondly, either. Of course, that was on the hybrid when I weighed 190 lbs, so who knows what they'll be like with 30-50 less lbs to schlep up those hills. I'll probably try to ride some of the course on the Saturday rides in September, just to get an idea what to expect.

As far as my training goes, I'm starting to see some improvement. Not amazing strides or anything, but just "finding my groove" sorts of things. For instance, I think I've discovered my happy place with cadence--my legs are most comfortable pedaling at 75-80 rpm. It's slower than I'd like, but not prohibitively so. I experimented with keeping myself above 85 this week, and only succeeded in going slower with a higher average HR. I suppose with training and the right shifting, I could get my comfort zone up to 85-90, but I don't really want to at this point. 75-80 suits me fine.

It's also gotten easier to stay in my aerobic zone. On the Monday "easy" ride, I was surprised to find that I could average over 13 mph while keeping my HR in the 110s-120s. I have to really haul ass to push my HR over 120 on walks, even in the middle of the day with heat indexes in the high 90s. I can't wait to see what I can do when the temps are back down to the 70s in a few months. :) The 14-mile pace ride yesterday was also better...14.1 mph with an average HR of 133, vs. the 13.1 mph/134 of a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if it's fitness or technique improvement, but I'll take it either way.

Today's ride was something new...17 miles at a "brisk" pace. I wasn't really sure the best way to do brisk--higher gear or higher cadence? So I did both. I ended up with an average of 15.3 mph with 150 bpm HR average...pfft. I was hoping for at least 16 mph, since I want to bring my pace rides up to 15 by the middle of next month. I guess there's still plenty of time to get there, and I'm happy with the HR, at least. Patience. Must. Have. Patience.