Two more PB's since the New Year...

Today was a scheduled 6 hour long bike ride. Last night and the day before I wasn't feeling well and wasn't sure how I'd do. Last night, around 11 pm, I couldn't control my hunger and had to call Domino's.

I justified it two ways. The first was that I felt weak and needed food to fuel today's long ride and the second was that I ordered a veggie thin crust pizza with no cheese and didn't think it would be too many added calories.

The difference in calories from a pizza with cheese versus a pizza without cheese is amazing. A regular slice of domino's pizza is 280 calories, a veggie-thin crust-no cheese is 95 calories. Best part is that without cheese, it still tastes great. I learnt about ordering pizza's with no cheese when I used to work as a kid delivering pizza's for Domino's.

Today I was on the bike just after 10 am. It was the first ride on my new seat and I was hopeful that it was going to be comfortable. I started the ride off watching the Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington. Best part was I've never seen it and it ate up 3 hours of the ride.

I used a new strategy to get through the ride. I decided to take short 3 - 5 minute breaks every hour. I did this for two reasons. The first was because I heard from a winner of RAAM that biking on a trainer is a harder workout than riding outside because your constantly pushing on the pedals, there's no downhill rests and it's a good idea to take a 5 minute break every hour to give your legs a rest and get something to eat and drink. I figured if it works for him, then I'll try it. The second reason was that I wanted to give my butt a break from my new seat and give it some breathing time to adjust.

Surprisingly, my legs felt really strong the entire ride. I even held back a little because I didn't want to push it too hard and possibly do more damage to my hamstring. The tough part was the mental fatigue. To overcome, I played mental games with myself.

After the first 2 hours of constant riding, I started to take a break on the hour. I'd go upstairs, eat something and drink some water. At the 3:15 point, I took a 15 minute break and made myself some lunch, a ham sandwich and mushroom soup. When I got back on the bike I pretended I haven't been riding and that I just getting started on a 2:45 ride today. The key is not to think of the entire time ridden, but just focus on doing the next hour.

Getting back on that bike after a 15 minute break was tough. It took a while for my legs to get their power back. When I'm riding, the endorphins take over and mask the pain. When I stopped and restarted, it took a while for the endorphins to kick in and mask the pain again. It's a lot easier physically to keep riding than to stop more than 5 minutes.

Instead of looking at time, I would just look at the calories burnt and take a break at 900 calories, which is roughly an hour. For the second half of the ride I watched the movie 25th Hour with Edward Norton. The last 6 minutes of the ride seemed to take a long time to count down. That's what happens when you clock watch, time goes slower.

I was really happy with the ride. My legs felt surprisingly fresh afterwards. There was no hamstring soreness afterwards. My average speed equaled my Ironman Louisville bike split. I set another two PB's in the past 3 days, it was the longest indoor bike ride I've ever done and my fastest average speed on a long training ride.

The bike seat was okay. It's definitely better than the old one, but it's too early to determine how much better as my butt needs to get used to it. I do like the fact that it's not putting pressure "on the boys" and my sit bones seem to be sitting perfectly on it when I ride sitting up. I'm already happy I switched and I'm told it should feel even better after 7 rides.

I did learn somethings on today's ride; Cold, sour green grapes are really hard to eat on the bike. The cold hurts your teeth and the sour makes it tough to eat more than one grape every 3 or 4 minutes. There was a lot of wincing when I'd eat one. I also learnt my Timex jersey, which I love, leaves compression ring marks around my arms after 6 hours of riding. It's already been 90 minutes after the ride and the rings are still there.

Long Bike - 6:00:15 / 201.60 km (124.99 miles / 33.5 kph (20.77 mph) 134 avg hr