11/2/97
My legs are sore, because I did so many miles this weekend. At least it was the most I've done for a while.
I went Saturday morning for my bike club's training ride. There is some confusion as to the start time and location, because we had changed it at the last meeting. But no one is sure what it was changed to. On the way down to where I thought it was, I ran into Don who was coming up the other way. We both rode back up north and joined up with the Erickson ride. They are a bunch of pretty serious types who ride together quite often. The point of changing the team ride during the fall and winter was so that if not enough people show up to our rides, at least they can join up with them. The leader of the ride is Glen Erickson, who is a local bicycle frame builder. I think he was on a tandem.
The course the big group took was up north, up a bunch of hills to a church. I had been up that way once before, and remember being off the back of the group because I couldn't clumb up the hills fast. I tried to stay with them better this time.
It was OK until the last mile or two, up the last stretch of hill. I was totally tired, and my legs were sore. I kind of blame it on the weight lifting I did on Thursday, but I'm not sure. I wonder if I would have been able to hang in with everybody else if I had not reduced my training in the last few weeks. My plan was to take a few weeks off, and start up again this week. We shall see.
After reaching the end, me and Don zoomed back. It was mostly down hill, and Don had to be back by a certain time. It turned out that he wasn't late, however, since he forgot to change the clock on his bike computer for the end of Day Light Savings time. Which reminds me, I haven't either...
After a soak in the bath and a relaxing few minutes, me and Lan got into our bike clothes and we took our new tandem out for a ride. We didn't pack too much food this time. We rode the trail down to Seward Park, where my Thursday races are held during the racing season. It was nice to be able to show her the route I took every week.
On our ride back, we ran into a lot of congestion, because the UW football game vs. USC had just ended. The University area turns into a giant parking lot, much like the one at Disneyland, except at Disneyland people don't all try to leave at once. We had to walk our tandem through the crowd.
By the time we got home (having to go over some big hills, ouch) I was totally exhausted, and Lan was tired too. I think we spent about three and a half hours actually riding out of four hours or so of our excursion. From a previous record of the ride, the route was about 44 miles. So including the morning ride, I did about 80 miles of riding in about five and a half hours.
This morning, I did 30 minutes on my rollers at a very easy pace, just to loosen up my legs. I did no other cycling today.