A non-race report (NRR?)

Today I joined about 125 other riders on a 56 mile ride of the Patriot's Half-Iron bike route. It was sponsored by the local tri club (of which I'm a member) and while I don't know if I'll be doing the actual race, I did want to take the opportunity to do the ride.

I arrived early and got my bike stuff together, and oggled at all the really fancy bikes (like some approaching the $10K range, compared to my $1K bike). I rode around the parking lot to do a systems check (brakes and all).

I rode up to catch the pre-ride briefing and stood around with my left foot clipped in and resting on my right foot. A few minutes later, for no reason what so ever, I fall over to my left and fail to unclip in time. Brilliant!

Fortunately, the parking lot gravel embedded in my left arm was being washed away by the 30oz of carefully diluted gatorade pouring from my aero bottle. I'll have a few bruises on my leg, and a big one on my ego. Amusingly, several nearby folks whispered, after I was up again, "I've done that too".

We got on the road a bit past 8am. I planned to avoid drafting of other riders to properly simulate a triathlon. I wore my heart rate monitor for data collection and curiosity. I've not ridden this far before in at least 15 years.

This wasn't a group ride per se, just a sponsored ride, so folks were pretty spread out. There were little packs of folks though. I'd guess about half the crowd rode it in tri style and half as a group ride with pace lines. Since I've never really done pace line riding, I latched onto one for about a mile. Wow! I see the draw. I was moving along at 20mph with an exceptionally low HR and hardly pedaling at all. It was pretty effortless.

I won't bored you with a mile by mile replay like a running race report. The weather couldn't have been better for August. For the first day in 2-3 weeks it was low 80's and overcast. It was very comfortable. The last 45 min the sun came out and it started to get warm, but all in all, it was a win.

The first hour seemed hard. My HR was higher than I'd like it be and I felt slow. I've noticed this before on my long rides. It seems to take about an hour for me to get in the groove on the bike. The second hour was much better. HR back to decent level and pace picked up. The club had water/food stops at the 3 official stops in the actual race, so that was cool. I only stopped at the middle one for a bottle refill and a bathroom break (in the woods). The 3rd hour was about like the second, though I felt tired.

The course is pretty flat overall. There are some rolling hills scattered through. Riding on Route 60 was a chore, though the cars were real good about getting over. There were 3-4 long hills and I had to kick it into my easiest gear on one of them. There's another short, but steep hill about 45 miles into the ride that was a butt kicker too.

Speaking of butts, mine was about done sitting on a saddle around mile 50. I don't think I'll be doing any riding (or sitting on small things) on Sunday. It's just the sit bones feeling a bit tender; no saddle sores or chafing thanks to copious amounts of body glide.

I am concerned about riding in a tri that way. I wore my bike shorts, not my tri shorts. I suspect my butt limit would occur earlier with tri shorts.

I ended up going about 58 miles due to a second-guessed turn. Overall, I averaged about 18mph, which I'm really quite pleased with. I saw a few folks with flats (who had helpers already) and one guy walking his bike. I asked if he needed help, but he was just walking off a cramp.

I did a short 2 mile brick run after the ride. It felt really slow and sluggish but my pace was actually a min/mile faster than my normal week day runs, so I can't complain. My legs were tired but felt ok. I had the beginining of a side stitch but it didn't catch. The sun had come out and it was getting pretty warm at this point.

A good work out and a fun time.