I made adjustments...

This morning it seemed like time stood still. I was up at 7:30 am relaxing with a coffee and eventually made a "Denny's Grand Slam" breakfast to fuel me up for my long ride and brick run. Originally I was scheduled to do the ride tomorrow but some guys asked me if I wanted to join them and the weather man said today was going to be 20 C and tomorrow 9 C. I decide to ride today and run tomorrow.

Once I got on the road I realized this wasn't going to be one of my best rides because the heart rate got up to my maximum fairly easy. I rode 50 minutes to Kelso to me the guys. There was Hans, Rogerio, Carlos, Brian, Bryan and Fernando. Hans, Carlos and Brian are training for Ironman France and I think this was Hans and Carlos first ride outside. Once we got going I realized that this was going to be a slower ride than I wanted to do.

Once we got on the road I took the lead and looked back and the group was back and split within about a kilometer. I kept going, would slow down, kept going, slow down and after going up 6th line hill I looked at my speedometer and after an hour of riding as only a 26.6 kph average. I was starting to get depressed. I don't like doing long rides that are under a 30 kph average. I had a decision to make, do I ride leisurely with the guys and make it more of an enjoyable social event or do I try to make up lost time and try to get to a 30 kph average. I decided to go on my own, I was going to tell the guys but they were too far back and I figured they would understand it wasn't personal.

I rode steady and kept the heart rate under 140 bpm. I did an out and back and at the half way point I was only at a 27.7 kph average. I had a side back wind on the return and was able to make up a lot of time. By the time I got home, and I did 3 big hills, I ended up averaging 30.4 kph. On one of the downhills with a wind at my back I got up to a speed of 83.3 kph /51.64 mph and didn't get a speed wobble. I love this new bike. 

This was our first warm day of riding. I was able to wear just a cycling jerse and nothing else. When I was riding in the cold weather all bundled up, virtually every cyclist I passed waved. Now that it's warm I guess there is a different type of cyclist on the road. At least 20 cyclists passed by me and I wave every time, only about 4 waved back. Just when I thought I was wrong about cyclists not being friendly they prove me right. So now I understand the rule. The "hearty" cyclists are friendly and the "fair weather cyclists" typically are not. Interesting.

When I got home I had a 5 minute transition and did a 30 minute brick run. It was really hard for me to keep the heart rate down only because I was running in the low 7 minute pace range and I wanted to keep it in that 7 minute range. My ego got the better of me, which is stupid.

All in all the training felt good. I wasn't exhausted, yet I felt like I had a good workout, I had a chest lung exercise cough, which I think is a good thing because it means I'm stressing that part of my body a little and making it grow. Now it's shower time, dinner, a movie and relax for the rest of the night. It's also nice getting my big weekend workout over a day early.

Long Bike - 3:30:50 / 106.87 km / 30.4 kph
Brick Run - 30:03 / 3.87 miles / 7:43 mph avg /145 hr avg