Originally Posted by Felt_Rider .
swampy, are you still on for the 180 this weekend? I don't know how you do it. I did the 100 on Saturday and I am still feeling the impact of that higher TSS for the last couple of days. I trained last night, but struggled to hold 85% of FTP. I did not train on Sunday or Monday because I felt I needed the extra recovery time. I will probably just do 80 this coming weekend.
I'm still on for it... Not sure which bike I'm gonna ride as all three are in various states of tear down. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/ROTF.gif The old adage of not making changes to a bike before a big ride... right... LOL - the mongrel I'm piecing together in order to get mudguards on (or fenders or whatever y'all call them overhere) is basically a frame/forks and a bottom bracket right now... Looks like tommorrow I'll be going out for a little bit.
How do I do it? Push down on one pedal and gently pull on t' other. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif Eat, drink rinse and repeat... or as the case looks like at the weekend, eat, drink, hose down and repeat.
I was OK the week after the last one and trained well during the week. Kinda smashed two hard L3 rides at the weekend, with an hour of L4, and I was really tired on Tuesday. Legs felt great - but enthusiasm for sitting on a bike = zero. I've been there before and just trained hard again and then looked back and in hindsight it was a bad idea. Thankfully, after a few bad moves like that I had the foresight to take note and jot down notes in WKO to that effect. When tired to the point of wanting to snooze in the car after work, rather than walk in the house and go snooze - don't train.
I learned a bit on the last ride (130 miles) about my current form and what to expect on this one and to pace accordingly. I will not be sitting on the hills ~240 to 250 watts, nor will I be hitting L4 on the little rollers. The ol' hamstrings really didn't like me too much after 110miles the last time but I had a tail wind. It's predicted that there'll be a headwind and rain on the 90ish mile return leg just what you need after an early o'clock start that has a predicted 39F temp with wind and rain. Similar faux-pas
The route:
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/24005
You can tell the guy is using Garmin guestimation technology. 11,000 calories and an average power of 238watts...
13hours moving and that power... does not compute on that course.
I've made a few tweaks to the position and 190 to 200watts while on the bars nets me ~20mph with the rack and bag, and its pretty comfortable.
This one is a bit more of a litmus test for the last two in the series. Those rides have checkpoints further apart, ~60 miles, and minimal food/drink provided. So it's on with the mini-rack and bag and plan accordingly. The 258 mile (400km) ride isn't that hilly, there's a couple of hills a couple of miles in length with some grades steeper than 8% for about a mile, so it should be less taxing than the Alta Alpina Challenge for example. The 600km... well, not sure what the scoop is with that yet other than I've entered it, it starts at dusk and the course with very scenic - not that I'll see much in the first 10 hours. I'll see what happens with the 400km first. I always seem to go alot better after long rides like this - not sure why and combined with the fact that I need more big rides to have a fighting chance to feel good in the last 100 miles of the Alta Alpina that take is 4 big climbs at altitude, I need to get rides like this done. I could just go out and put in 6 hours on my own but it's not as much fun...