Last Rides of January

Sat: Since I didn't ride at all during the week (last week) I thought that I would be ready to rip the pedal off the bike on Saturday - NOT REALLY!

Since nobody called, I set of on my long ride by myself a little earlier than usual, 8:30ish, which is actually very late by other peoples standards. The weather was not as good as the past couple of weeks as the winds were really gusting so instead of doing Tantalus then a windy Hawaii Kai loop, I decided to do a double Tantalus instead.

I started more conservatively than the week before and averaged 254 watts for the climb. Ttytt, I was not really satisfied as I thought it would be in the 260ish range considering the 5 day rest I had. The second Tantalus, I did in 4 parts on the way back down (ie. from the top, go down a bit, climb back up, repeat until the bottom) and didn't have much in the tank. My legs for the rest of the ride (and day!) were totally shot - similar to how your legs feel after the Marathon! I ended up with 3h 53min RT and 93kms and the ride must have been hard as I actually burned more energy (Kilojoules) than the Saturday before when I had more seat time and kilometers!

There are more and more people out on the road nowadays and I saw Garrett Ito, the 2 time Dick Evans Memorial Bike Race winner in Kaimuki. I was NOT going to follow him out to Hawaii Kai after my double Tantalus though. One thing I noticed about Garrett was that he was spinning well over 100rpm all the way through Kaimuki, something to think about...

Sun: Since my legs still felt pounded, I just went out for a 2 hour ride at low power and very high cadences (taking notes from Saturday). By the end of the ride, my legs felt better.

Tues: Tonight I tested my new light out and guess what...it conked out about 30 minutes into my ride! But, not to worry as I wanted to burn whatever charge the battery had so that I can safely recharge the new battery from a fully discharged state. I'll probably use the light for some interval work on Lagoon Drive tomorrow. Btw, I had a big smile on my face as the light was AWESOME while it was working, very very bright and white!