First Ride Since Tauranga Half

I was a bit apprehensive before this morning's ride. My legs were trashed after the Half on Saturday and I've only just started to walk without pain. I definitely went too hard in the last part of the bike (trying to make up time due to the Drafting penalty) and also for the first half of the run.

Even if I hadn't had 'issues' with that thing that shall not be named anymore, there was no way I could have kept my runnnig at that pace at that HR. I was in the high 160's and that is very near my max. I was going to blow up, it just happened a bit earlier and a lot more sudden. Lessons learned.

The ride to the Mount started OK but after about 20 minutes I heard the dreaded hissing noise coming from the back tyre. There is so much glass in the roads coming through Tauranga from the Friday night that I am going to have to change my route to the long way around. That's a puncture in my last three rides and all around the same area of town.

I rode to the Mount to practice on the UCAN2 bike course which is my next race in 2 weeks time. Not much time to train but there is the UCAN2 #2 a few weeks after that so hoping to improve both from last year and over the two races Best last year was 1:14).

I did five laps of the course with a couple of minutes easy pedaling in between. There was very little wind so it felt like a headwind at every turn. There was no 'easy' leg with a bit of a tailwind.

It took a while to be able to get my HR up. The first lap was disappointing. HR was only in high 130's and speed was low. Second lap was a bit better but it was only when I moved forward on the saddle that I seemed to be able to put the full effort in (although AvHR was still relatively low at 143) and get a decent time for the loop.

Fourth loop I sat back in the saddle to make sure it wasn't just that I was getting warmed up. Sure enough, time was slower. For the last lap I moved forward and gave it all I had. I got my fastest time ever (6:33, 37.1 kmh) but the AvHR was still 9 bpm lower than my previous best from last year (6:46 May 11th 2012 AvHR 157).

I'm hoping that there is a bit of fatigue in my legs from the race and that I will be able to get the HR up higher during the race (almost a given!) and beat that time.

That little gold cup just above the sea with a number 2 in it signifies that I am the second fastest person in the world (who uploads to Strava) to ever ride that loop ... the fact that there are only two of us who have uploaded our times is besides the point!

Shem, I am coming for you. How hard can it be to knock 4 seconds off my time ???