Century Training Series: Day 9

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With Day 9 comes the second week of cycling in the century training plan. Yesterday was a rest day so I was chomping at the bits to get out and ride. I wasn’t looking forward to the heat and wind though.

Yesterday’s ride is the same as Day 2 which is one hour at endurance pace (15 mph for me). Throw in my warm up and I was looking at about 1.5 hours on the bike which isn’t bad. I arrived at my normal parking area and put my bike together. As I was putting on my gear I realized I had forgotten my gloves. After Sunday evenings Day 7 ride I had hand washed them so they would dry over the rest day but forgot them when I left the house today. Normally I would have been upset but I looked at it as an opportunity to get some sun on the back of my hands. Right now I’ve got this tan oval on the back of my hand where the hole is on my gloves. I don’t remember the last time I had ridden without gloves so it took some getting used to. Can’t really say that I enjoyed it though. Gotta remember them today.

I started out with my normal 30 minute warm up and took it kinda slow at first because it was hot out. The high for the day was 102F with the heat index a little higher. What made it worse though was the wind. Wow it was blowing hard at times. The weather channel said it was 10-20 mph and there were a couple times I bet it was gusting over 20 mph. Once the warm up was done I settled into 15 mph and kept that pace pretty good for most of the hour. I dropped a little on a couple of the hills but gained it back on the downhill side.

About a half-hour into the endurance portion I saw a young woman sitting on the curb with her bike laying next to her. I watched two guys ahead of me look her way and ride past without saying a word. I always make it a point to ask folks if they need anything when I see them stopped or it’s obvious they’re having trouble. So, as always, I asked her if everything was OK and she said something about her chain as I went by. I stopped and took a quick look. Her chain had come off probably from shifting while coming up the hill she was stopped on. It took less than a minute to fix and she was on her way. It always feels good to help folks out like that.

After getting back on my bike I completed the remainder of my endurance ride with no issues.

Here are the numbers:

Total Time: 1:36:47 (30 min warm up; 1 hr endurance; 6 min cool down)
Distance: 23.20
Avg MPH: 14.3 (includes warm up and cool down)

I’m writing this on Wednesday so I can tell you that I felt sore this morning from the ride. Not sure why as I didn’t think it was overly strenuous. It could be lack of sleep. I’m notorious for going to sleep at midnight and only getting six hours in. I know that’s not enough and I need to do better.