Three Days of Suffering

Not exactly three days. I rode last Friday with a few riders from the Firestone group. It was an easy 20. I hadn't been on the bike for almost two weeks and one of those weeks was spent in WA state where one day the high reached 78 degrees. My rides on Saturday and Sunday were not so good. I'm afraid my body had gotten use to the WA weather and now I was back in 95 degree FL weather. It was a sufferfest for me.

Saturday I rode with the Firestone group doing a new route called the Northwest Passage Loop. I would say there were close to 20 riders. The group stuck together pretty good, but I kept getting dropped on every incline. For some reason I just didn't have much energy and felt tired. The route was suppose to be 45 miles, but I got 35 with and average speed of 17.6 mph. I hadn't slept much the night before either; so I think that was also a factor.

On Sunday I rode the Scenic 25 with my son in the afternoon. It was still pretty hot out. Again I had very little energy. Once we turned onto Scenic Highway I dropped bad, but I warned my son that I would probably go pretty slow on Scenic. Before we turned onto Scenic I had an average of 17.5, but once I got home my average had dropped to 15.8. The good news is that I found $12.86 on the side of the road on Scenic just south of Creighton Road. I was riding along and I saw this change on the shoulder which looked to be about $5 to me. I wasn't going anywhere fast so I decided to stop and pick up the change. My son got a good laugh out of it once I got home and emptied my pockets. He had seen the change too but he didn't stop.

Yesterday I rode the rollers for 45 minutes. Lately (when I'm in town) that is what I do on Mondays.

All this going out of town has really hurt my riding time. For the month of July I only got in 263 miles. My fitness is not where I had hoped it would be. I was really hoping to be in top shape for the Pensacola Cycling Classic, but at this rate that is not really going to happen. I don't even know if I will be in town then. If I am in town I will do the race, but not at the level I had hoped.