Long and Flat...

I had a tough time waking up this morning. I needed to get up by 8:00 am to get on the road by 8:30 am to meet up with Mark and his friends. The plan was to do part of my long bike ride with them, as they planned on doing at least 4 hours and I needed to get in a 6.5 hour ride.

I pushed myself out of bed at 8:00 am, I was so close to calling Mark and telling him that I was going to sleep a little more and go later, but I knew that would be a bad idea. Some how I was able to get everything ready and get out the door by 8:35 am. I could tell this was going to be a slow speed day right away. I didn't have the power and my upper body was a little shaky on the bike.

I met up with Mark and met his friend Doug. We started riding together and met up with Walt, another friend of Marks. The weather was a little strange, it looked like it was going to rain, but we were able to pretty much stay away from it for the first 4 hours of my ride with the group. Mark took us to ride Sydenham Hill in Dundas, it is a nice and challenging hill to climb. He then continued to take us to ride more hills. The route was good and I liked the hills, even though I probably shouldn't have been doing them because they take my heart rate out of the aerobic zone. But they were fun and I always like going on routes I've never been on. At one point, Doug and I were riding together and a big deer jumped out in front of us and crossed the road. At first I thought it was a dog coming at us, then I wondered "what kind of dog is that big", then I realized that it was not a dog, but a deer.

Mark, Doug and Walt are Ironman triathletes. As it turns out, Doug and I both raced in Gravenhurst a couple of weeks ago and Doug finished a minute and 16 seconds behind me and was in 4th place. Doug is a really good triathlete, he had done over 10 Ironmans and his best was a sub 10 hour finish, I think it was like a 9:30 something. Amazing.

At the 4 hour mark I split from the group to get in another 2.5 hours. Just as I started riding alone, it started to rain, then after about 30 minutes it started to rain HARD, then it started to hail. As I was riding in the rain, I passed by a cyclists on the side of the road, who was under a tree and trying to stay dry. Shortly after I rode by, he caught up to me and we started to ride together. His name was Douglas Clark and he is visiting from the Atlanta Georgia area and is a very good cyclist. His strength is hill climbing and he seemed to be a little disappointed that there weren't any bigger hills. He was telling me that as a 49 year old masters cyclist, only recently has some one beat him on the hills. It took a 21 year old to do it. I keep thinking that 40 is the new 20.

After Douglas and I split up, it continued to rain, then it stopped and the sun came out. The roads started to have "steam" rising off them. It was the strangest sight. By this point I was getting "thirsty". I hadn't stopped for water when I should have and now I was getting dehydrated. It was a sight for sore eyes when I pulled up to a convenience store. Once hydrated I started to feel better and had about 90 minutes left to ride. As hard as I tried I couldn't get going over 30 kph for any period of time. I also had to start using my front small chain ring for climbs, typically I can do this route in the big chain ring, but not today.

I ended up riding about 186 km in 6 hours 35 minutes, my pace was around 28.3 kph, although my speedometer started having trouble when it started to rain so I'm not sure if I have the right distance and speed. I was just a little disappointed because I can't remember the last long ride I've had under 30 kph. I guess it shouldn't matter because my legs did get a good workout.

After the ride I did a 30 minute brick run, I felt pretty strong on the run and did it at a 7:44 pace. When I finished the run I felt surprisingly well. The only thing was that even a couple hours after my shower, I'm still sweating. Alice and I planned on going to see a comedy show tonight, but she wasn't feeling well and I don't mind giving my liver a break. It's too bad because we were going to go with Jamie and his wife. Jamie is the triathlete I met last week on the road. I was really looking forward to it.

My plan for the rest of the night is to rest. I'm going to get a good meal and relax on the couch and watch the Tour de France.