Saturday, August 23, 2008

100 On a lark part Deux

So I go out Sunday with my original club riders, the cycle logic gang, am as confident as I can possibly be, but unfortunately get dropped like a hot potato. Mind you with these guys this had never happened so I was not accustomed to telling the guys y'all go ahead without me I'll do my own ride. Ha! When we got to the wall it was all I could do to get up the darn thing. But there were the guys and all of a sudden I'm in front because they took the longer scenic route. At the time I turned off from their ride I was third in the group, but that didn't mean much because I was the one that got dropped earlier. So I'm feeling totally dejected and go ahead and do the Sunday church thing and get charged up.

The next day, Monday the lark visits again and I decide to go to Pleasanton again and take a different route that is less traveled, but should still give me 100 miles with less time spent on the chip seal shoulder that 281 offers.

Weather conditions are different than last time when the wind was 25 MPH. This time the wind was at 5 to 12 MPH from the South. I take a different tack than last time also. Rather than busting my butt going South I decide to just keep a decent pace not too hard and not too easy. I actually was going by feel rather than by sprocket.

I still get down there in about three hours which is alright, but I'm not wasted like I was last time. The portion of chip seal shoulder was still a pain in the butt, but it seemed to go a lot faster. I still only stopped three times and drenched myself for the cooling effect every time.

I basically fly home even better than the time before. I ended up doing 17.3 MPH with a maximum average of 20 MPH. Like I said I was flying! Total time for my best 100 PR and season PR 5:46 minutes.

What this tells me is that yes I may get dropped in the short ride going really fast, but I can sustain in the long ride going a moderate pace in comparison. Yes it's still a hard core pace for me, but it got me there and back in the least amount of time.

This was three days before I had to be back at work and served as a dedication to school starting up and I did it my way and ended the Summer on a positive.

Speaking of positive another PR for the Summer is in the works.

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