Mike, Alex and I all headed down to the Santa Ana River Trail (I'm just going to start abbreviating this SART from now on) to ride 40 miles. The first 5-6 miles were hard for me. My quads again, were just on fire. I pushed on with the moderate pace and there became a point where everything felt comfortable. Cadence felt great, effort level felt great, I felt fantastic. The power meter was being flaky. I think the power sensor moved out of adjustment enough that it read intermittently. It's possible the battery may be suspect too. Since my chainstay is traingular shaped and the sensor sits on the peak of the triangle it's a precarious position.
On the way back up, as we passed the golf course (roughly 8 miles out of 20) I started feeling the lactic acid accumulate in my legs. Fatigue was setting in. I wanted to sit up and take a break so bad but knew that if I did that, I would lose any gains I would make by continuing at the current pace. I found some place to put my mind...some happy place or just more focused and determined and pedaled on sustaining the effort level.
Regardless of having power and cadence for the ride or not I still had time. Alex clocked 1:57 for the total ride and since we rode over to the bathrooms and water fountains down PCH I can take 2-3 minutes off the ride time. This leaves me with a total time of 1:54 - 1:55 which beats my previous best of 1:57.
I'm really excited to see the jump in performance. I wonder if I hit the next level or if taking the protien supplement after rides during the week has helped enough to be recovered for SART. Now if I could get my legs to stop throbbing with fatigue I'd be very happy. =)
The most surprising thing out of today was seeing Mike hang with us all the way down to PCH and finishing only a few minutes behind on the way back up. His personal best is now in the range of 1:57ish. Way to go Mike!!!
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