Bike Rides



Time and mileage from Sunday's ride

 As the time quickly ticks away, I am finding myself focused on getting longer bike rides in.  For both of the 1/2 iron distance triathlons I have completed, I found myself under prepared for the bike rides.  My goal is to make the bike ride the part of the Ironman the segment that I am the most confident about. 

To that end, Annette and I have been riding the Beeline Highway to get our long rides in.  We haven't quite both made it to ride on the same day yet (though this Sunday should be it!!).  The thought is that if we can feel comfortable riding this segment, we won't be apprehensive about it come time for Ironman.  Two Sundays ago, Annette tackled the 50ish mile ride by herself while I was at home nursing an unhappy stomach.  It was HOT that day.  She did a great job--making it almost the entire way despite running out of water.  Smartly, she called in for a pick up rather than pushing it in the hot temps without water. 

I talked the ride this past Sunday.  I had the benefit of Annette's experience, so I knew to take along plenty of water.  I burned through a full Camelbak bladder and two bottles of sports drink on the ride.  I ran out of fluids about 20 minutes from finishing, but the temps were not too high yet and I pushed on.  The scheduled ride was 2 loops from JRs to the gas station past Fort McDowell.  I made it through the first loop and was about a mile from JRs when I decided to turn back and start my second loop.  I was worried that if I made it all the way back to where my car was parked I wouldn't do the second loop at all.  This meant that my 2 loops wouldn't have quite made 50 miles, so I rode about a half mile down McDowell Rd to make sure I hit 50 miles for the day.  I was happy I made myself finish.  I actually felt pretty good at the end.  My speed was pretty good--I'd be happy if I could maintain that for Ironman.