Two Weeks Out

Very windy today.  Sustained winds of 31mph with gusts well above 40.  I am two weeks out from Cohutta and needed badly to get a longer ride in.   So I set off this morning about 8:15am on my cross bike to get a day of LSD.  I was planning on meeting T.F. and his crew for their 55 mile ride at 9am.  So I did 40 min of hills to get warmed up.   I noticed my rear wheel had a minor shimmy so I slipped back home to tighten a spoke or two.  But I found that one spoke was completely loose and another had fallen out altogether.   That was it, no go on the cross bike.  So I switched shoes quickly and put air in the road bike and went out a minute late to meet up with the crew.  

Funny how I have so many bikes but was scrambling to find one in operational condition.  My old mtn bike has no brakes since I pulled those off to put them on Eli's bike.  I now have replacements but haven't put them on yet.  My new mtn bike had a flat front tire from last week's race.  I tried to replace them last night but struggled to get the bead over the rim.  J.G. used this as an opportunity to talk me in to going tubeless (a decision I hope I don't regret).  We couldn't get the bead to seat without a compressor so J. G. took the tire with him.   My cross bike rear wheel is kaput.  So that leaves only my road bike and my SS Surley.   I need to get to work to get the fleet operational again.

So I now set off on the road bike with T. F. and two others.  We did bike path miles at first since it was the most sheltered from the wind.  But the other two guys bowed out only a few miles in.  I guess the wind was scaring them.   Then T.F. decided to turn back worried about making the distance in the wind.  Certainly it was blowing hard, but I guess I was determined to get the miles in so I pressed onward into the teeth of the wind.  I caught up with another crew about 10 miles later and was glad to be in their wind-breaking paceline.  They were a little slow, even with my conservative LSD pace so I broke off a few miles later.   I circled back eventually to the East and started enjoying the stiff tailwind.  After a small meal at Wendy's I ramped up the effort and hammered the last 25 miles averaging about 20-25 with bursts up to 35.   I caught up to another group heading toward Granville and they upped the pace to stay with me for the last 12 miles.   Ended up with 17.2 mph average over 77 miles and I had plenty left at the end.   A good training day -- bring on Cohutta.