I think I love the process more than the races ... sometimes

Its been a tough block for me. This being my third training block since my "off season" in the fall of 2018 where I had no plans from das'coach but just my own thang. Translation - I could trash my legs day in and day out and not care ... mostly. I just love to ride and run and with no races slated after Marji Gesick 100, other than Bill's Bad Ass 50k in November, I just road and ran every day. Heading into this third and final week of a LAT block after having put down a fairly decent time at the Snake Creek Gap #2 race and earning a third-place spot on the podium I knew this week would be a tough one. The biggest ride for the week would be a 5-hour ride on the fixie but I had made an executive decision to ride the new rig for this ride. I have not put much time in on the new bike and well ... I want to make sure I have a good fit on it and to work out any possible kinks before heading to the True Grit Epic 100 in the beginning of March in St. George, UT (one of my favorite places to ride).

The days leading up to this ride were mostly the same stuff I have been doing yet higher intensity as this is a build block after all. Interval sessions (2+ hours), on the indoor trainer, running outside (1+hour) in the cold Ohio temps (29* and super WINDY), more intervals yet again on the trainer cuz it was cold, windy, and nasty outside (2+ hours), strength training sessions throughout the week, and another easy-ish, but not really, ride on Thursday. That left me with a 5+ hour ride and a 2-hour trail run. The weather for the weekend looked dismally cold ... I HATE the cold and will avoid it if possible, especially on the bike. My daughter wanted to do a college visit on Friday at Bowling Green but decided to cancel it due to all the walking and her having to deal with bilateral stress fractures in both her feet. Having already taken the day off from work and with the temps not being hateful (high 30's low '40s) I decided to keep the scheduled day off of work and do the long ride.

Got up in the morning and took my HRV reading but did not look at the result until after the ride. I didn't want to be mentally swayed either way by the number (ended up being a good number and reflective of how I felt physically). I am starting to trust the HRV number sans on reading this THursday that had me at a 10 yet on my ride I felt like crap. Of course, that could be a number of reasons and it is only one data point in the grand scheme of things.

Mentally heading into the ride I was a bit tired but fairly positive I knew how it would go. I was prepared not to be able to hold the Z3/L3 requirements for 4-hoit as its been a long block and I have done well on those rides already so really just wanted to stay off the trainer and get a solid climbing day in. Figured the Funk Bottoms gravel course would fit the bill BUT with the thaw and above freezing temps I suspected the roads would be VERY soft and suck the life out of my legs. The course did not disappoint in those regards. ALL of the gravel roads were super soft, many of them were just down right wet/muddy, and the downhills were even a struggle to gain any free speed off of. There were NO FREE roads on this ride. Even on many of the downhills, you could just feel the roads pulling the bike back and slowing it WAY down due to the soft and loamy roads.

Felt a lot like this.

Dogs?!?! Holy crap this route has a LOT of dogs along the way, which sucks. Some are fenced in but several are not and I had unwelcome company several times running alongside me. Had to yell at quite a few to try and get them to back off. One scared the CRAP out of me as there were two dogs, one that I saw that was running on my right hand side, but then another that came out of nowhere and scared the SHIT out of me when all of a sudden it was on the left hand side, keeping pace, and started to bark. Nearly jumped off the bike. Damn thing caught me way off guard. Oy.

Throughout every climb I worked to stay in power L3/L4 and from what I can tell I did just that (based on the ride data). Obviously the power is much more difficult to keep up on the descents and was more like L1/L2 and the HR would drop but it wasn't too hard to keep the HR into Z3/Z4 when I hit the climbs and given that this is the end of a tough 3-week build block (LAT) I am happy with how I felt. Never took an easy day since the Snake Creek Gap race 6-days ago so that's a good sign that I am acclimating to these 5+ hours rides every weekend.

Before heading out on the ride I had looked at the weather, of course, to see what was in store. All in all it looked fine sans the wind and low temps. I did notice that in the Killbuck area they were warning of several flooded roads. I breifly thought of finding a different route but this particular route would be perfrect regarding ride time and elevation for what I was looking for. As I had made my way through the Killbuck area with no flooded roads encountered, thank goodness, I thought I was free from getting wet. Nope, nope, nope! About 30-minutes after Killbuck I noticed to my left a rather flooded and overflowing river ... thinking to myself ... man I hope I don't have to turn left. Whelp ... that's exactly what happened. As I looked ahead where I had to turn left the road was completly flooded. Noticed a pick-up truck makingn its way across the flooded road and the water was up to its bumper as it pushed its way thru the fairly strong current and deep water across the road. I took a few minutes to see what I could do as far as "riding around this particular road" but as I stood there in the wind getting chilled I made the executive, albeit stupid, decision to take a shot at riding through the water. I went fairly slow to "test the waters" to ensure that the current would not sweep me away and I slowly made my way through to the other side. Not smart of course and well ... now my feet were SOAKED! With my body temperature lowered and the HR lowered I had to motor to get myself warmed back up. I was happy I made it through safely but now I would have wet feet for the next 3+ hours of the ride. Yuck!!

No, they did not starch the flag!!

I extended the ride to 6-hours when I rolled to the car in 5:40-ish as I really did want to get in a 6-hour ride. The nature of the trails ... oh ... and the WIND!!! Damn gusty and windy all day long. Good for drying things out, but NOT good for cycling in. Somehow mentally it never got the best of me and I was fine to just back off the gearing and push a good cadence to get whatever speed I could get in the wind. Felt a lot like Leadville when heading back to the Power-line climb. Just nasty head and cross winds throughout the day. Several times I was riding on an angle to try and not get knocked over.

Last 20-ish minutes was just to 1) spin the legs easier and 2) to extend the ride to hit that 6-hour mark. Felt good about hitting 6-hours and now I have a 2-hour trail run tomorrow morning to test out the trail running legs and hit the Olde Girdle Grit trail race course to see if I want to register for it for next Saturday.

S-Works for a bit of mud treatment today. Now for a nice bath!!

All in all my body actually felt pretty good which was a pleasant surprise to me. I ate well but yet again drank very little. I full bottle of Infinit but ate two gels and two full packages of Nature's Bakery Fig Bars (4-bars total). Got a little hungry and tired towards the end but likely due to the long block and the muddy conditions just beating up my legs all day long.

Always fueled by Christopher Bean Coffee.