My roommate Mike has not been able to ride on Saturdays recently due to other commitments. So he felt he would not be physically in best shape to ride 58 miles and elected to ride only 50 miles while Alex and I rode the full length.
Well this turned into Mike being a big carrot to me. I had to make up miles and time on him before he reached the turn around point down in Huntington Beach. I was determined and hell bent! I wasn't able to reach him before the turn around point. We passed each other with about 3-4 miles between us.
I reached Huntington Beach and rested for about 1 minute. I drank some and scarfed down the last half of my first energy bar and I was off again. In the end, I only made up another mile on him on the way back to the car. I was about 7 minutes behind him which equates to a little over 2 miles.
On the way back I realized I was spent. I exerted too much energy hauling butt to catch him before he hit the turn around point and didn't focus on the overall picture. After talking with him about his ride back up to the car, if I had chosen to ride my normal pace I would have passed him on the way back.
One of my biggest challenges and areas I've been working on is patience. The guy in front of you doesn't need to be caught within the next 30 seconds. You can ride more efficiently and with less exertion to reel him in over a slightly longer period of time. Today was a competition for me. I wanted to catch Mike so bad that I forgot about what I've been working on the past 3 weeks.
My final ride time was 2 hours 54 minutes and 35 seconds. It's in between the times I've finished the past two weeks so I'm happy with it.
An interesting note. I asked Mike earlier in the week if I was a masochistic rider. He laughed and said he jokes with me when he calls me that but doesn't mean it. He does believe however that I have the ability to ride and put a mental block on the pain that most people would be having riding at the exertion rate I do. Today, was the first time (even though the ride time was right in range of the last two rides) that I've felt the lactic acid build up in my legs pretty bad. Yet somehow, I was able to just forget about it and push on. Another interesting note...this is the first ride I've been on ever where my heart rate hardly moved up or down significantly. Today's heart rate was so much more level and even through the course of the ride.
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