the hurt box....

a couple weeks ago Psimet asked me if i would be interested in a bit of racing. not the hardcore Criterium style, but a 50K 2 man time trial. the BFNIC has the racing bug for sure. a lot of the group can be found hammering out 20 mph midweek rides or 25 mph crits on the weekend. feeling a need to change things up i said for sure.

a 50K all effort is no joke. even with a partner it was still 31 miles of serious suffering. you don't get to ease into this kind of effort. it's go go go go go go go from the start. i knew this going in and was mentally prepared for it. physically, the legs were not as fresh as they could have been. i rode 38 rolling miles on Saturday around the Starved Rock State Park area. plus, i have been battling some dead legs lately. so, i knew i needed to get things warmed up before toeing the line.

our start time was 9:21 and guess what, i didn't get warmed up enough. the course was a 15 mile loop. it was an instant struggle for me. i found it hard to hold Psimet's wheel. i wasn't far off it, but i needed to be inches from it since he was in full TT gear/setup and i was rolling my normal roadie gear/setup. the legs were screaming at me; "Why didn't you warm us up!!!!" i hit my max heart rate of 183 bpm at mile five!!

Psimet was strong. he instantly took to tracking our pulls and barking out at 1 minute intervals to rotate. i knew he would do this and it was a solid plan. i felt a bit bad that first loop. a couple times i dropped off his wheel. he would finish his pull and look for me to take my turn. having to close that small gap to take my pull cost us time. add in the fact that i was surging to the front and we had a bit of a yo yo effect going on that made it hard for us to find a rhythm.

the more and more i ride i realize that i may be a better distance rider then speed demon. as we started lap 2 i felt better. the legs were still burning, but i was able to hold the wheel and take better pulls.

that last lap was fun. we suffered into the wind and up some rollers heading back West. prior to making the last right turn for the final 3 miles i was hurting real good. i was planning to pull off and let Psimet power us in. however, we made that turn and what did i see???? four riders up ahead. it was the dangling carrot. i didn't stop pulling until we chased them down. Psimet then took the lead and powered us home. i fell about 2 bike lengths off his wheel, but was standing, sprinting, and giving it what i had left.

we don't have the official times yet, but Garmin had me at 1 hr 23 minutes, 22.3 average mph, and a 167 average heart rate. i think this is my fastest ride and highest average HR to date. even on hard efforts i rarely spend prolonged time in Zone 4 (80%-90%), but i was in that zone for 27 miles of this ride. no wonder it hurt so good.

so, i have raced this season. next up is the Dairyland Dare 200k and 12,000 feet of climbing. different kind of ride, but same hurt box. good times.

Race Stats

later.