Giving Lance The Look
So, after my 72 mile ride on Saturday, I decided to take Monday & Tuesday off just to let my TSB (low number means high fatigue) come back up a bit. Last year I pulled out of this ride at about 80 miles in with heat exhaustion. Guess what. Tomorrow’s forecast is HOT, HUMID with lot’s of climbing in 100 miles. The chart says my fitness was higher this time last year. I suppose that makes some sense since I lost some training time in May. So I figured I’d just let my legs recover from Saturday this week and get out for a couple of morning rides.
On Wednesday I went out for my typical morning training ride. As I was approaching the Lynnwood climb which has become a staple of my morning ride I saw another rider go through the intersection ahead of me and start up the hill. I got a green arrow and started up myself. I figured I would set myself a nice sustainable tempo up the hill and see if I catch him without pushing into the red zone. No dice. Though it was nice to have a carrot up the road. I bombed down the descent hitting a top speed of over 47 mph and kept a solid pace on the flat after that and caught him just before the next stop light. Turns out he is a transplant from Chicago and knows one of my teammates. So I got to ride along with him for several miles and we had a nice chat. It also turns out that he’s a pretty talented racer so I don’t feel so bad about not reeling him in on the Lynnwood climb or getting more winded than he did on some of the little bumps we went over together. Funny, my avg speed for that part of the ride increased a bit 
. I started to sprinkle on us a tad and shortly after I got home the sky opened up. I sure hope he skirted that on the remainder of his ride!
21.11 miles , 1:07:50, 952 ft ascent, 220 watts avg power, 150 bpm avg hr, 971 calories.
This morning my only goal was to go out for an hour – fifteen or so and keep it at a nice easy century pace. I have trouble with that. But I did it and I really enjoyed the laid back pace with very little heavy breathing. I’m going to have to do more of that kind of riding in the fall!
21.08 miles, 1;12:57, 769 ft ascent, 172 watts avg power, 137 bpm avg hr, 817 calories. CTL is at 62 and TSB is at 3.
So, now about the picture above. Leah and I went over to the Nissan building in Cool Springs to pick up my ride packet for tomorrow. Nissan/Team Radio Shack had a booth set up where you could get your picture made with Lance (green screen of course). I figured I’d shoot Lance MY look. Bring it on big boy! C’mon over to Franklin!
I gotta say I look pretty good in the Team Radio Shack jersey!