Back to training...

I knew it was critical to train today. I needed to get all the crap out of my body from Thursday's party. I also knew I needed to get my mind back on track.

The ride started out poorly. Before I got out of the garage I got a flat front tire, which took me 10 minutes to fix. The weather man said that today was going to be sun, clouds, rain and lightning, which essentially means he doesn't know what's going to happen.

Today's training was a 5 hour bike ride and I wasn't sure how my body and mind would handle it, but I knew it was an important training session in order to get me back on track.

The beginning of the ride was pretty strong, I went up the toughest hills in the beginning and my average speed was in the 27 km range, which is 1 - 2 km better than normal. About 45 minutes into the ride I caught up with a fellow triathlete named Mark Rutledge. His speed and mine were similar and he was doing a 4 - 5 hour ride, so we decided to ride together and talk.

We kept a pretty good speed up and went up some challenging hills. On one of the down hills I almost wiped out at 82 kph. As I was going down, my front end started to shake and I tried not to panic and not wipe out, which thank God, I didn't. But it was scary. At first I thought it was a loose head set or wheel problem, but Mark checked it out and it looked fine. I think the problem was that I panicked and my arms started to shake. I had to stop one other time because my chain got jammed again.

As we talked we got to know each other and Mark is quite a triathlete. He has done an Ironman in 10:40 range and a half Ironman in the 4:40 range, plus he is 43 years old and in my age group. He was a nice guy and we rode together for close to 3 hours.

When we parted I still had close to 2 hours of ride time left. I decided to go back to one of the huge hills I did at 72 kph and see if the problem was my nerves or my bike. I went down the hill and kept my hands on the brakes, at 60 km an hour I was fine, at 70 kph I started to shake a bit. I think it is my arms, but I'm going to get the bike shop to check out everything mechanical on the headset.

It was warm and humid and I went through my water and energy drink about a half hour before I was to finish. I was really thirsty and I forgot to bring money in order to be able to stop at a store and buy a drink. I pushed forward and kept dreaming about getting home and going right for the water once I got in the door. Which I did. I ended up drinking 8 or 9 glasses of water. When I weighted myself I was still only 177 lbs, which means I probably lost close to 10 lbs on that ride.

I ended up averaging 30.9 kph (19.15 mph) for 155.5 kms (96.4 miles). It was my fastest long ride of the year, but I did feel it when I got home. I wasn't exhausted but my legs did feel like they pushed it pretty hard.

I'm glad I met up with Mark, it helped clear my mind, plus now I have a guy I can call to go for long rides. He also had an interesting comment, he said that he quit drinking for a year to train hard and he wouldn't do it again, it was no fun.