Last training ride before the metric century

On Sunday, we had our last training ride before the metric century. And it was a little bit rough. Although we were out on the glorious Natchez Trace again—saw multiple deer and a whole flock of turkeys this time!—I could only manage 20 miles at an average of 10.5 mph.

Blech.

Me and Andy, ready to go.

Like Whitney and Andy (our fourth badass century rider, Amanda, was in Minnesota for the weekend) I wore everything I plan to wear on the ride: Terry skort, Carrera helmet. Both were great, although the padding in the skort wasn’t perfectly placed for more upright riding.

I also had my bike setup the way I planned to have it, including adding foot cages to my bike pedals. Which, incidentally, I HATED. Internet, do you think that I can ditch them? I don’t think they work very well for small feet. I kept realizing my feet had crept up into them and I was pedaling with my arches.

Whitney and her Trek

Not sure why I was so off my game, unless it was the Turtle Anarchy beer (thanks, Aubrey!) and pizza at Desano with the lovely ladies of the Nashville blogger meetup the night before. (Where much fun was had—you can find links to all the blogs of these clever and entertaining ladies here. Photo courtesy of Lauren, though taken by the busboy who kept calling me “boss.”)

Nashville bloggers!

I did ride to the meetup, of course—I took Kermit Allegra out for the first time in a couple of months, and kept up an 11mph+ pace (but it was just an 8-10 mile round trip).

Not sure if those two things could have affected my performance on Sunday that much, but I will be sure not to do either of them *this* Friday night. In fact, I’m trying to get lots of rest and cutting out alcohol for the rest of this week. Planning to go on a short ride tonight, and then nothing more until the day of the century.

Yikes. I’m actually going to ride 62 miles on Saturday. I keep alternating between excitement and terror.

Training ride: The Natchez Trace

A couple of commenters pointed out I was being a bit sketch about the details of my training plan in my last post. Those commenters were absolutely right. But you see, me being me, the details of my training plan ARE a bit sketch. They consist of:

• Biking for transpo as often as possible (pretty standard, but I’m pushing it more than usual)
• One medium-length ride during the week (10-15 miles)
• One long ride at the weekend (20-30 miles)
• At least one cross-training day (walk/jog or yoga)

This means I’m riding somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 miles per week. Since I once read somewhere that riding an equal number of miles per week as you will in your big ride means you’re in good enough shape to make it happen in a reasonable amount of time, I feel like we’re doing OK. If I’m wrong, well, I’m sure the Internet will chime in to let me know.

Anyway, last weekend our training ride was on the Natchez Trace. Since I’ve never been able to transport my bike comfortably by car before, this was my first time biking on the Trace. All I could think was, what took me so long??

One fun little quirk about going on long rides with me: I’m a total grump for the first 20 minutes. I start thinking about how we’re only 10 percent or whatever of the way in and that means we have to bike for TEN TIMES this long. I brood about the temperature and how much water I have with me and how much that hill we just went down is going to suck on the way back.

Then, somehow magically somewhere around mile 5, I am fine. I become accustomed to the heat and discomfort. I am resigned to the fact that I will be sweating for the next few hours and parts will be fun and parts will not be fun and I am totally OK with it going on as long as necessary. In other words, my Czech/Finnish peasant ancestry kicks in. Being built for endurance vs. speed isn’t a bad thing.

So after my typical rough beginning, I was all about the Trace. Even though it was late morning, we saw some wildlife! Namely a turkey, a turtle and a deer, which luckily did not decide to charge us. And…get excited…a dead skunk! Car traffic was very light and the drivers were courteous. There were tons of other cyclists; we saw at least two dozen.

Whitney and I actually considered blowing off work on Monday and going all 171 miles to Tupelo. Of course, that was while we were biking with a tailwind. When we turned around just over 10 miles in, our pace slowed since we had more uphills + a headwind to deal with.

We did stand out quite a bit from the other cyclists on the Trace. We were the only riders  who didn’t have drop bars and clip-ins. Near the end of one particularly long, steep incline, a male road cyclist came up beside us and greeted us with “Way to go, ladies!” I wasn’t sure what to expect (would he be down on us for not wearing helmets? Was this a drive-by pat on the head?) but he somehow managed to be encouraging without being patronizing. “I’ve seen people on $2000 equipment die on this hill,” he confided. Since we were able to keep him in sight for at least 10 minutes after he passed us, we considered ourselves pretty hardcore. “Think of what we could do with $2000 of equipment,” Whitney said.

So here’s what we did with our decidedly NOT $2000 bikes. (Not to mention that Le Peug only has five working speeds at the moment…I’ve got to get on that.)

I know, not exactly fleet foxes. But by the end of the month we can improve this time a bit—and I also think that, especially with the adrenaline of riding in a group, this is a pace we can maintain for 62 miles. We both still felt good after the ride, like we could have gone longer, and no soreness afterward. And the Clarksville Century course is legendarily easy.

And sometime in the next six months (spring or fall, probably!) I am taking a long weekend to ride the Natchez Trace. Anyone coming with me??