100 Miles of Nowhere

The premise was pretty simple, ride 100 miles and go nowhere. I missed the initial Fat Cyclist announcement and as a result I was about a month late to the party. That said I got my registration packet and DNA Cycling were happy enough to swap in a too small jersey for a too large T shirt. Timing wise it tied in nicely with Becca’s volunteering duties at Ironman Arizona. So we packed my Bike and Trainer in the car and we headed out to Tempe. Our schedule was pretty tight, we left home midafternoon Saturday and arrived early evening. Checked in, unpacked and basically flaked out.

Becca was up bright and early to get to her Volunteer station (T1 Changing Tent), I had a slightly slower start but after some Skratch Rice Porridge and couple of cups of coffee I was good to go.

I had packed a couple of Laptops and a Fan, I knew the room would have AC but a fan in the face works very well. There were two laptops; one would run TrainerRoad and Netflix and the other was running Zwift. I am playing with Zwift right now and have a couple of months free from being a Strava Premium user. For now the jury is out if I will keep it post free period.

TrainerRoad had prepared a 5 hour ride profile. Finishing in five hours was going to be a stretch for me, obviously that’s 20mph for 5 hours! I guestimated that I would be around 5:45 which was 17.3 mph. That seemed more realistic. The ride they had created was a mix of Sweet Spot, Tempo, Endurance and Active Recovery. After a warm up it was a rinse and repeat of a 60 minute cycle with a cool down. I added my usual 15 minute warm up and they added a 10 minute cool down twice and another 20 minutes of Free Ride on the tail end to close it out.

 

For fueling I had Lara Bars, they’re simple and whole food. I also had a couple of bananas. For hydration I used Skratch Labs Raspberry with a half scoop of BASE Amino. I have been using the Amino supplement when riding indoors for a while and I think it’s really been working with my recovery.

So with all that preparation complete it was time to get on with it! So I did. After 2:20 I stopped to pee and refill my bottle. I worked my way through my food, essentially eating 3 things every two hours, a Lara Bar is 210 calories and a banana 100 so my consumption was a bit light but I have been fat burning for quite some time and I am used to exercising in a pretty fasted state. Becca came back around noon and then headed out. I was still plugging away.

Eventually the TrainerRoad ride ran out and the second or third movie ended. I had around 93-94 miles completed per my Edge 810 but was around 87 miles per Zwift, I had joked with Becca that if I made it to 110 I would have a 250 mile week. So when 100 miles rolled I kept going. By 105 I was done, a couple more miles and I rolled the Zwift Century, seriously the things we do for a freaking badge!

So with 107 (Edge 810) miles I stepped off. 6:06 and 17.5 mph average. This actually is my longest (distance) ride to date this year, that record is not going to last very long! I think it’s the third or fourth Century ride this year.

All in all it wasn’t that bad, having the TR profile really helped keep me engaged, no doubt it I had just been spinning I would have been slower and significantly more bored. I totaled at 248 miles for the week, with over 160 miles on the weekend on the trainer, Saturday I had ridden 53 and change supporting a friend who was riding his Sufferfest Knighthood.

What I was really pleased with was the average HR, 119bpm for the entire ride.

Now to ease off of the gas and taper into the Everesting ride in two week!