Todays Big Ride

Today was my last serious ride before doing the white rim trail in a day on Oct 4, WRIAD as it's commonly called.

I rode as much dirt road and trail around Boulder as I could in the time I had...

67 miles in 5 hrs, 38 minutes average speed of 11.8 mph, trying to take it easy. I had a little more pavement than I would want. I didn't have serious climbs or technical. Maybe I should have done more climbing but was worried I didn't have time to find the big climbs. But my goal was lots of saddle time to assess my feelings after.

For breakfast, I ate an English muffin with egg and cheese and a Morningstar Farm vegi-sausage patty. It was yummy.

On the ride, I ate a turkey and wheat bread sandwich with swiss cut in half over two sessions. One was one about an hour into the ride and the other was and hour later. I also chomped on a Clif blocks pouch and a chocolate Gu. The rest was a water bottle with half Gatorade and half water and one 100 oz bladder of water only. A mile 50, I stopped at a station and got a 24 oz Gatorade and drank about half.

I found on the ride, I craved Gatorade over water. The weather was cool, near 70 F and water just seemed boring and empty. It almost made my stomach hurt and made me pee more than anything. I wound up drinking only two-thirds of my 100 oz bladder.

The sandwiches were filling while the Gu and Cliff blocks were overly sweet. I like the solid food aspect of my sandwich over the Gu and Blocks.

Just before mile 60, I felt like crap. Starting to feel worried about the prospect of 100 miles. But suddenly, maybe the food stuff kicked in--the Gatorade in particular. I felt a sudden euphoria and slipped into the zone where I felt complete bliss. I was ready, if I had the time, I would have just gone off to tear out 40 more miles with no problem.

But time running out and time to play two games of softball, I headed home and logged my 67 miles.

Down the throat, I gulped a chocolate milk, ate a small burrito, took a shower and started to feel like a wreck...thinking softball is going to kill me.

Surprise. I had two of my best games ever and feel as I type this, pretty damn good.

I'm suddenly so excited to ride the rim next week.