Friday was nothing unusual. 69 minute training ride with climb up Lynnwood way thrown in. Did it slightly faster than the prior two times with 3 bpm less avg heart rate. A sign of some fitness coming back? Maybe. Was trying to keep the pace in the endurance zone for the most part and succeeded.
21.13 miles, 1:09:46, 978 ft ascent, 212 watts avg power, 148 bpm avg hr, 956 calories.
So the I found out the team was planning on riding the Harpeth River Ride on Saturday 6/12. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do it before that or not. I really hadn’t been on any really long rides (50 miles has been about the max so far this year) yet so I wasn’t sure if I’m ready to go out and knock off 100 miles. They have shorter options, but heck, what fun is that? I might as well get my money’s worth! 
So I figured on Saturday I’d better go out and put some longer miles in my legs just to get my body at least a little used to the idea. I was aiming for 65-70 miles.
First two hours of the ride was a fun little jaunt with a teammate and a friend of his from the Chicago area. For the most part this first two hours fit into my requirement for a long endurance paced ride. Of course, as any ride with more than one cyclist there were a couple times the pace kicked up. We dragged poor Rob (the friend from Chicago) up Stillhouse Hollow. Let’s just say being a flatlander, he hadn’t seen a hill quite like that before on a bike. But he did great!
Then the second 2+ hours I was out on my own. I decided to explore south of Lieper’s Fork on the Natchez Trace as I had never ridden down that way before. South on the Trace and then back North on Lieper’s Creek Rd would be just the right little loop to get me back to Puckett’s Grocery to refill my water. All was going well and I was feeling good. Then I noticed the wind was still in my face. Funny…the wind was in my face as I was pedaling Southwest on the Natchez Trace and it was still in my face as I was heading Northeast on Lieper’s Creek Rd. Not fair! Then I looked up and noticed the sun was more over my left shoulder than my right. Hmmmm…something just wasn’t right. So I pulled out my handy new Motorola Droid and realized I was headed pretty much South toward Columbia, TN. Oopsies! So I plotted a route on some previously undiscovered (by me) back roads and headed towards Lieper’s Fork. Turns out I went about 4.5 miles out of my way which included a pretty cool two mile gentle (about 3%) climb. So considering I roughly had to double back, that added about 9 miles to what I had expected. Not the end of the world except it was getting a bit hot and silly me didn’t have enough food and water with me (shouldn’t have cut it quite that close). So right about mile 65 I really started feeling it. The lack of calories and water, I’m sure, had a bit to do with that. But also my butt and feet started to hurt a bit. I think some of that was due to the fact that I had just been in for a fit on Friday and some of the parts didn’t get quite back in the right exact position (needed to order new parts to get new fit dialed in on bike). So, I think for the Century ride on Saturday I have gotten things back to close to normal and my use my old shoes for this longer ride just so I can break the “new” stuff in a little more slowly.
Anyway, when I finally got back in cell coverage (a whole other story) I called Nancy and arranged for them to meet me at Puckett’s Grocery in Lieper’s Fork for lunch. It was only 7.5 miles home from there but I was done. I downed a whole liter of water and grabbed an apple turnover to take care of my immediate thirst and hunger. Then I sat down for lunch with my wonderful girls and caught a ride home in the van. Total mileage about 72 miles. Mission accomplished.
71.83 miles, 4:25:42, 3503 ft ascent, 165 watts avg power, 144 bpm avg hr, 2733 calories. CTL 67, TSB -30.
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