Big Ride Saturday. #thisismaplewood #fueledbyscience

Saturday turned out to be a nice day with overcast skies and a light breeze. I got in 120 miles with some good climbing and then about 35 miles on the Katy Trail. The Katy might have been the hardest part of the ride. I tried to keep the pace at about 20-21 mph for the whole time while on the trail. Since it is so flat and I am not that good of a time trialer, my legs were really tired. I would much rather have hills all day that long flat sections. I was happy that I felt like I stayed fueled for the ride. I had 3 SiS gels, 1 banana, 1 Coke, 1 protein bar, and 2 SiS Electrolyte bottles. I need to work on drinking more fluids, but since it was so cool out, I have a hard time remembering.
https://www.strava.com/activities/871044504

Getting the 2017 long rides in.

Saturday was my first (of many) long rides for 2017. Even though it was only 107 miles, the ride felt really easy. I rode part of it with The Hub group ride, so there were some times that we were pushing it.
Dirty Kanza 200 miler in June will be a tough race no matter how well prepared I am. I hope that every other weekend I can get in 100+ miles in.
April will be Tour of Hermann (90 miles on Saturday / 100 miles on Sunday) will be a good test to see what my endurance fitness will be at then. I will probably do The Hairy Hundred in May for my last race in prep for DK.
The one big thing I am really trying to work on this spring is my nutrition. DK will be around 14 hours, so I will have to figure out what kind of solid food along with drinks, gels & bars to take. Thanks to Science in Sport for their sponsorship this year. I really like how easy the gels are to take. I just need to figure out all the ratios to keep my body rolling along.

Recovery Week. #thisismaplewood #fueledbyscience

Nice to have a little planned down time after a race. My legs felt fairly good this week. On Tuesday night at the Red Lantern ride we ended up riding a little harder than I had planned. Once I got rolling my legs started feeling really good. On Friday I didn't have a lot of time so I went and did a short workout consisting of 2 by 5 laps of TNW Crit course. I felt ok and averaged 21-22 mph per lap. On Saturday we headed out to preview the TT course for Tour of St. Louis which is in March. The course is only 11 mile long. The workout was just to ride it steady and keep the heart rate consistent. I averaged 22.5 mph & my HR was around 150-155. It felt really easy effort considering it was cold and breezy out there. Sunday was the Knucklehead Shorty loop. We rolled up on the group on Clayton and rode easy until Strecker. Then we started to push the pace. After a quick pit stop along the road, we had to work to catch back up to the group. Once we regrouped, there was once last segment that we hammered. Alex was able to KOM it, but I know we can go faster on it.