Much better ride last night

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After the horrible ride I had on Monday evening I decided to make some changes to what I was doing and with the help and ideas of some of the commenters on that post I made several changes and had a great ride. Here’s what I did:

1. I drank more during the day. I said that I have a bad habit of not drinking enough during the day so I took that to heart and ramped it up. I still don’t think I drank enough but what I did drink helped.
2. I ate a cliff bar as I left work to get some food in my stomach and give it time to digest before getting in the saddle. This means I ate it about an hour and twenty minutes before riding.
3. I delayed my ride a half hour. I did this to try and eliminate some of the heat problem and it seemed to help. A lot. Sure, it was hot for the first 45 minutes or so but it started to get much better as the sun started dropping. I think that was a huge improvement.
4. I didn’t wear a cap under my helmet. I sweat really bad and have big problems with it getting in my eyes. I’ve been wearing a cycling cap under my helmet to solve this problem and that solution works great. With the heat though I don’t think that’s a viable option anymore. I noticed a big difference in air flow in my helmet (I need a new one with more vents) but I did deal with sweat in my eyes. I need to pick up one of those head bands that solves that issue.
5. I did an actual warm up. I road the first six miles at a sloth like 12.3 mph avg because, like Doug said, I believe I was starting out too fast. I believe this helped.

Those are the changes I made for last nights ride and I had a great 23 mile ride. Was the greatness of the ride a result of all of the above? I don’t know. I think they at least contributed to a better ride. Like I said I road the first six miles in warm up at a 12.3 mph avg speed. My overall avg speed for the 23 miles was 14.5 mph. That means I road the final 18 miles at a 16.7 mph avg speed. All in the small ring. I felt it last night and a little this morning. This is the first time in a while that I can actually feel like I had put in a hard workout on the bike and felt it after. Awesome.

Thanks to everyone who provided support and ideas from yesterday’s post. I sincerely appreciate it.