Week 7 in the bag. Another solid week, mileage jumped up from the prior week as my body adjusts the increase in volume of training and this week I broke through the 10 hour barrier again. This pales in comparison to Ironman volume from last year where I maxed out at around the 18 hour mark, that being said but I am happy with it. As usual the week was a muddle and I did miss one Sufferfest ride but I added in two commutes; it’s a 28 mile round trip and a 1000’ of gain each way so I wasn’t too worried and it allowed me to ease off a day before Sunday’s big ride.
Saturday night was another opportunity to catch IRL (In Real Life) with an online friend when TribeccaTo was extended an invite to see The 39 Steps by Louis, I have known Louis online for the last couple of years and although we live in the same town it was a chance to meet him in person and in fact watch him act in the plat. The play was awesome, a 4 man production that covered 150 characters! It was packed with laughs and was a romping good show, if you are local I recommend you catch it before the limited run ends! We stayed locally and that cut our drive on Sunday morning by half.
Sunday’s long ride was a change from the proposed Mt Baldy Road and instead TriBeccaTO and I opted for the Glendora Mountain Road to Mt Baldy Village, a longer in duration overall climbing with 16 miles of climbing in total but not quite so severe.
It’s by far the longest climb I have ever done with over 5000’ of gain, so I was a little worried about what to expect but it went really well, I paced myself pretty solidly and although I was tired at the end my fueling and nutrition went well with the standard issue Hawaiian Sweet rolls with PB&J doing the business! The weather certainly helped with low flat cloud for the entire ride. Suffice to say the scenery was amazing even with the low cloud and it’s somewhere I would love to go back and explore some more. I decided to switch out my cassette to an 11-28 and that helped although strangely the spacer between the new and old cassette was a different thickness and in addition to not giving me as clean a shift it also scratched the hell out of a brand new Ultegra cassette (argh!)
Here is the elevation profile and links to the data;
Garmin Connect and Strava
One problem I am having is a twitchy HR strap, it could be a weak battery but it is frustrating as I am able to get a clean set of data, it’s making me rethink going back to a power meter which of course digging deep into my pockets and when you’re remodeling a kitchen it’s a matter of priorities!
Reminded that you can’t take this too seriously!
So this week was a tad less than 150 miles but I broke through the 10,000’ of elevation mark, which is a first. This coming week is a rest week, followed by a week on vacation and then it’s race (ride) day, it’s not a race and people shouldn’t race a century ride IMHO!
Some photos from the ride, including the almost flying car!
Onwards!
We saw 39 Steps on Friday Night (Season Tix Holders) and it was one of the best shows we have seen at GCT in a long time.
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