Weekend Recap: Back Roads & a Nice Run

I changed my mind about a dozen times last week about where I wanted to ride on Saturday. But, in the end I had finally decided on riding part of the back roads century course as Jason remembered it having some nice rolling hills. I know I need to ride more serious hills, but I need to start off with a little smaller ones and work my way up to the hard ride. Actually I am saving the hard ride for next Sunday.

 

Anyhow, the backs roads century course is located in Berryville, MD which is about 65 miles west of DC. Rachel met us at our place and we were on the road by 8am. The drive wasn't too bad and I think we were riding by around 9:45. Unlike last week, there was actually bathrooms were we parked which made me happy even though they were located next to a chicken or pig farm show?

I was chilly when we started, so I wore long pants and a long sleeve shirt under my jersey. I regretted my decision on outfit choice later in the ride, but no weird tan lines that the other two got was a big win! Also unlike last week, we didn't get lost! We had choose to ride the second 50 miles of the course and all the roads were clearly marked with arrows this time. It was really nice not to have to stop at all to study cue sheets.

The first hour of the ride felt too good to be true and it almost felt like we were going down hill the entire time. I was a little upset because I was expecting and wanting more hills. The hills did pick up though and there was a couple decent ones were I had to go into my small ring and my legs were really burning. 

Around mile 40 I was ready to get off boomer as my lady parts were killing me. My new saddle arrives tomorrow and I can't wait. I hope I love this one as I don't think I can do too many more long rides with my current one. But overall it was a great ride: the roads were mostly empty and the scenery was pretty.

Things that I really need to work on though is taking in more nutrition on the bike. During this ride, I put a Gu Brew tablet in my aero bottle and water in my other bottle. I tried to drink every time my garmin would beep on auto lap. I have it set for every 5 miles, so roughly it is beeping about every 16-18 minutes depending on how fast I am riding. I think I did ok with the liquid part as I did drink my entire aero bottle and half of my other bottle. Now onto the food, I am riding with honey stinger waffles and stinger chews. On this ride I only brought one of each and ended up feeling like I needed more. For the first hour I forgot to eat anything, then I tried to use the same method as above and eat something every two beeps on my watch switching between chews and my waffle. The problem was I didn't bring enough of them and felt hungry near the end. I know figuring out what works for you is a lot of playing around with it and I just hope I have it down come race day.

 

We finished the ride in a little over 3 hours and changed into our running shoes for a short 20 minute brick. Rachel and I shared a waffle before the start of the run and off we went. The run itself felt good to me and was over before I knew it!!

Overall, I think the training day went well and I had a lot of fun riding in a new area. The best part of the day was when we rewarded ourselves with a coke after the ride. Yum, it tasted so good especially after we had talked about getting one during the ride. The worst part of the day was when a three legged dog chased after us and could actually run at 20mph. WTF is up with my luck and dogs?

 

Sunday nothing too exciting happened. I had a 90 minute run scheduled and met up with a friend who ran 3 miles with me then I ran the rest by myself. It was nice to have company at the beginning of my run but I enjoyed myself the entire time. The weather was perfect, my stomach didn't bother me, and my legs felt good :) Oh and I actually maintained a decent pace without my splits totally being all over the place.  I was happy to be running, but I was also happy when my 11 miles came to a end.

I ate a small snack afterwards, then packed my stuff for the pool. This was really an easy recovery swim, plus I was able to test out my wetsuit for this weekends race. I have actually never wore a wetsuit, so I wanted to get a small amount of practice in before having to swim in it on race day. I felt a little silly swimming in it at the pool, but glad I tested it out. I only swam 300 yards with it on then finished up the rest of my swim without it.

 

I was done with both workouts by 12 which meant we had plenty of time to go visit Jason's mom for Easter :)

 

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

 

Happy Monday All :)