The Sunday ride out of the Bee Cave Trek store is usually a challenge. Yesterday I made it even more so. I blame it on old age. Here is how it unfolded. Due to the heat, the 8:00am wheels down time was moved to 7:30. I was reminding folks of this on the Saturday ride. When I got home from that ride, I prepared for the next day, including setting Waze to take the fastest route. Why, I don't know, I set the arrival time to be 7:45 thinking I'd arrive fifteen minutes before departure. That meant leaving home at 7:11. Never gave it another thought.
The next morning I loaded up the car, taking two 24 ounce water bottles (one with electrolyte) for the bike and a 32 ounce bottle of protein drink for before and after the ride. All I needed to do was walk out the door and leave. At 6:25, still oblivious, I sat down for a few minutes, thinking I'd leave at 7:00 and be early. Thirty-five minutes later I woke up. It took a few minutes to get myself together, but when I got in the car Waze advised I'd arrive at 7:48. Ok, no problem. Duh!
I was tooling along Bee Caves Road noticing all of the cyclists out and about when I saw a group of five coming toward me. I recognized Sherry and finally it dawned on me that I screwed up. I did a quick analysis, ruling out riding to the shop to start. So I did a U-turn (no traffic) and caught up and passed, giving a honk of the horn. That was a mistake. I should have slowed down, rolled down the window, and identified myself. I had assumed that the honk would get their attention and they would recognize my car. They didn't. I then drove another three or so miles and pulled into a Circle K and hurriedly started getting ready to ride. In retrospect, maybe I should have gone all the way to Loop 360. In any case, they went cruising by and couldn't hear me hollering and jumping up and down. As it turned out, it was a four, maybe only three minute head start before I could be mounted and riding.
Rather than a leisurely warm up, I was pedaling hard from the start. At one point I could see them cresting the hill after Weston, so I knew I was gaining. It took six miles and four pr's (given by Strava) before I caught up. Regular readers know I hate rolling through Rollingwood. Mikey took pity on me as we approached Zilker Park and pulled in for a potty stop. That gave me relief on two counts. But my legs were toast and just in case there was any life left in them, we turned on Azie Morton Rd, a really tough climb.
The next seven miles were easy on the body so I cruised along. Then we hit Southwest Parkway, Republic of Texas, and the Travis County Circle, Southwest Parkway, Hwy 71. The wind was supposed to be out of the SW, but I swear it was always in my face. I was doing ok on liquid and handled Travis County Circle okay, but had nothing left for SW Pkwy. Thankfully, it had some good downhills where I could recover. Same for Hwy 71.
We took the back way to the Trek store and I pulled in to rest and ask Sherry what her mileage was. That's when I calculated I had another four plus miles to Circle K. My rule of thumb is to not rest more than five minutes when riding by myself. I find that the muscles start tightening up after that. However, I have another rule of thumb that says wait for your heart rate to return to normal before getting back on the bike. In this case it was nine minutes. Interestingly enough, my average heart rate for the whole ride was what I usually do. So, in terms of bodily functions, breathing, heart rate and hydration were as they should have been. Only the legs had no life.
When I left the shop for the final four miles, I thankfully had the wind behind me. I kept the cadence and power low and took it super easy on the hills. Once at the car I rested some more and drank most of the protein drink. I'm taking today off but will give the legs another test tomorrow.
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