The Long Ride

Most endurance triathletes have at least one session on their weekly training schedule marked with the words “Long Ride”.

Some people really look forward to them but for others it looms on the horizon like a big, black cloud.

I fall into either camp depending on mainly the weather forecast. The weekend just past was awful, after studying the forecast it became apparent that there just wasn’t going to be a good time to ride so the best thing to do was to get out of bed first thing on Saturday and just get it done.

I’ll be honest here, I’m a fair-weather cyclist. I thoroughly enjoy my cycling when the sun is shining, the wind is light and it’s not freezing. A negative change to any of those variables really dents my enthusiasm towards hitting the roads.

So, with that in mind here’s a brief breakdown of a typical ride for me in rubbish conditions:

Pre-Ride

Decide on the best route for the conditions: I was scheduled to ride for 4 hours. I have a number of routes available to me but I decided the wisest move on a day such as that would be an out-and-back. This would remove the temptation to abort the ride if the conditions turned really bad and I was only a few miles from home.

Decide on best gear for the conditions: It was cold and foggy, so it was full winter gear with reflective waterproof jacket and the bike lit up.

Decide on best nutrition for the conditions: It wasn’t going to be a fast ride as I was only allowed to use two gears. I selected 53x17 and 39x17 as my gears of choice as I knew there would be a lot of climbs on this ride. As such, gels weren’t necessary – I went for 1 Powerbar cut in half and 10 cubes of M&S flapjack at 80cals per cube. 12 bits of food, enough for 1 bit every 20 minutes for 4 hours mimicking the feeding intervals I use during races. 2x750ml of water is usually enough to get me through a long winter ride.

Start of ride

The first thing I noticed was the cold on my face, the only part of me not covered by some item of clothing. Experience told me this would be fine once my face had gone numb so I ignored it.

The first 15 minutes were spent warming the legs up with a high cadence using the 39x17 gear. At this point I was feeling ever so smug at getting my arse out of the door so early.

An hour in

Visibility was very bad and hard to see anything through glasses that were soaked with mist. Off they came, although visibility wasn't improved much as the fog was getting thicker the further into the countryside I got. Still feeling ok and enjoying being in the countryside while the roads were still quiet. Still feeling quite smug.

Halfway

Despite losing the feeling in my feet, I reached the turnaround point at 2 hours still in pretty good spirits. I still felt strong and the fog had cleared. I made an internal cheer as a hint of sunshine broke through the mist!!

10 minutes later

It was pissing down with rain. Very cold rain. I was still a very long way from home and I knew it was important to keep working hard. Again, experience from previous winters told me that if I let my HR drop too much my core temperature would drop and that can sometimes mean real trouble.

I switched my Garmin 910XT (strapped to my handlebars) over to the display with the Heart Rate and off the display with the speed. Going slower than you usually go can sometimes be dispiriting so best not have that particular fact staring me in the face. Keeping the HR up was the most important factor at the time.

The smug feeling was quickly being replaced by feeling slightly daft.

The last hour

Now getting very wet, sealskin lined gloves are great retainers for water. Core temperature was OK, but my sense of wellbeing was being sorely tested with each vehicle that sent spray over me – especially the bastard trucks. I also prayed that Santa would be very cruel to the brat who laughed at me through the back window of one of the passing cars. My sense of humour had well and truly deserted me at this point.

The end

I threw my bike in the garage, I’d deal with unloading and stacking it properly later. I didn’t even take my Garmin off it as I wasn’t particularly interested in shitty stats of a shitty ride at that moment in time.

The best bit

I stripped off next to the washing machine (into which all my gear went). I then made a huge mug of hot chocolate and climbed back into bed where I stayed until my feet thawed out.

Guess what, the smug feeling returned at getting that ride completed in those conditions to the point where I took to Facebook and Twitter to gloat.

What next?

Same again this weekend!

TTFN!