This is my only mid-ride photo from the first half of the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour. The tl;dr is that I killed it.
The wind was favourable for sure. I was aiming to cut 20 minutes off my last year’s time and crack the six hour mark. I told my coach I though 5:45 was a big jump but not impossible.
When I clicked the stop button on my head unit it read 5 hours 4 minutes.
I took a shot of it because I didn’t believe it either.
What was more surprising was how good I felt. I texted Irene that I could go out and do it all again. Past year’s selfies have had me looking drawn out and grim. I usually feel happy to be done for the day, confident (usually) of being able to do it again the next day, but completely spent.
This year I hung around the beer tent waiting for the luggage to arrive feeling like nothing had happened.
I can certainly attribute some of that to the caffeine in the gel I took at hour four, but I prefer to think that it’s the training paying off.
Usually I struggle to get 1000km in on the bike before the tour. This year between commuting, trainer workouts and actual rides I have done 5384km as of today.
So that’s a fair bit more preparation than normal. May I just pause here to offer effusive thanks, praise and gratitude to Irene who’s been a bike widow since… oh… January.
Interesting to me though is that my longest training ride before this event was 140km, one of only three rides that have got into three digits.
I’ve always just gone out to try to gradually ride more to come closer to the big one eight oh.
But this year I did more shorter, focused intense (sometimes barf worthy) efforts.
It seems it has paid off.
But the big question I have for myself is ‘can I repeat it tomorrow?’
Stay tuned.