Saturday, June 4, 2016

BDR is Done

A dreary, rainy day for a bike ride.  If this had been any other Saturday, I would have waived off and stayed indoors to drink coffee.  Instead, we were in a hotel room putting on our biking garb and I was grimacing at the lobby coffee.  I chose not to actually check the radar on the phone - it didn't matter, I was going biking unless they closed the course.

I'll cut to the chase.  I cleared my goal and closed out the course at 101 miles and change.  Wind was thankfully minimal, and the temperatures were quite moderate.  However, the nice-then-rainy-then-nice-then-rainy forecast that I'd been watching the past week actually chose a middle ground - constant spitting rain with a few downpours, but no actual heavy stuff that would have caused a safety concern.

101.15 miles on the trip odometer

I wasn't actually sure that I was going to make the distance until about mile 80.  By mile 50, I was struggling a bit and was worried about being able to continue.  I had planned to stop every 15 miles or so, but from mile 60 forward, I increased the frequency and had a short break every 10 miles. This made the interval distance more manageable (instead of saying "gawd, I have another 40 miles to do," I was saying "ok, another 10 miles to 70, I can do that...").

The rain sucked; was a huge distraction and was effectively another layer of discomfort on top of the normal discomforts of a long day on the bike.  But I'll take sucky rain over sucky wind - wind grinds you down without remorse.  Light rain is manageable.

I hesitate to give stats, because there are lots of guys faster than me, but here's what I did today:

  • Total Distance: 101.15 miles / 162.8 km
  • Moving time: 6:07:55
  • Avg moving speed: 16.5 mph
  • Avg speed (including time for stops): 15.6 mph
  • Calories burned: 2,342
  • Avg cadence (crank rpm): 82


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