Well Sunday brought a perfect day and while I felt a tinge of guilt dropping my two children off at Grandma's and heading up to High Cliff to ride the 56 mile bike course, I knew I needed to do it. I got going a little later then hoped reaching the park just shortly after 9am. It was a beautiful day and one I can only hope to get on race day. Mid 60's when I started with a light West/Southwest breeze between 5 and 10 mph.  Parked and got ready to hit the course. West winds are what you will generally find in these parts over the summer, southwest I think is the perfect wind direction for this course.

I had my entire nutrition plan ready to go, two bottles of perpetum behind the seat, one water bottle in the rack and Gels. I did not take the gels in the quantity I will on race day but after 1:30 minutes on the bike I took one every 20-30 minutes with water. It all seemed to work very well and I no GI issues. Not that I generally do but I had not used Perpetum before and I wanted to test it. The stuff is all it is cracked up to be, the taste is just ok but tolerable.

Climbing out of the park I got lost, I lost the course right away and rode around the park in circles a couple of times before I finally found my way out via a service road and back on course. This is why the course comes up a bit short becasue I reset the Garmin after getting "lost" and started the course when I figured out where I was. The hill out is steep, I will defiantly easy spin it and possibly walk it to start the run. I have had some bad training experiences when I spike my HR first thing in a workout, never being able to get it low and steady again, I don't need that on race day.  

Garmin saw the ride like this, on a side note my speed and cadence sensor is not picking up cadence, I think it may need a new battery.

I am pretty happy with this ride overall, I had dreams of averaging 19mph but I realize that is likely not going to happen. I kept my HR in zones 3 and 4 on this entire ride staying aerobic which is my race day plan. I spun up the hills and made hay where it was to be made. But it was a perfect day, not sure what my chances are of getting another such day on the 22nd.

The course sets up really nicely in my opinion. It lends it self to a conservative start and a strong finish. I would say overall it is a rolling course but as you go out it seems flat but it is all generally a false flat and you are slowly climbing. I was following the course on the Garmin and I had a virtual partner riding at 18mph. We basically were right together over the first 15 miles or so. Then we turned and there is a climb and you go on this little tour of farm fields and some new Wind Mills. It's a difficult 5-10 mile stretch in my book. Here my pace bunny took a small lead on me. But halfway through it there is one nice downhill where I caught him and passed him. He gained ground on the next up hill section but just before you finish this little loop at the bottom of the course you crest a hill and drop back down to Lakeshore Rd. Here is where you can make some hay, especially if the wind was like yesterday out of the southwest. There is about a 6-7 mile stretch in here that is all gently downhill. Yesterday here is where I dropped my pace bunny and never saw him on the Garmin screen again. After about 7 Miles there is one 2 mile hill to climb and then you are back on it again turning west (hopefully with the wind) and rolling downhill. Then a nice North section again looking flat but feeling downhill. I clipped off many of these miles between 19 and 21mph feeling like Lance Armstrong. Then I turned west.......while it was a light breeze it had picked up to about 10mph and turning into it at about 45 miles into the ride was hard. I found the last 10 miles to be a bit of a struggle with the wind and I am sure some fatigue but I tried to push through and generally felt pretty good.  The run will be tough, but I think I had it left in the tank yesterday.

Overall the ride is scenic and nice, along the Lake shore. The drawback is if you get a windy day, it will be tough with the wind coming off the lake. A North or East wind would be a bummer because it would take some of the fastest sections of the course and make them into the wind. But like I said winds are generally from the West here during the summer so chances are good for a favorable wind.