Saturday, March 6, 2010

Pedal through the Pines

I did the charity ride, Pedal through the Pines, this morning and it was great. It was in Bastrop, going from the high school, through Bastrop and Buescher state parks, then out to Serbin, then back to Bastrop. It was A LOT hillier than I expected. I mean, west of Austin is hilly, east of Austin should be flat, right. Not quite. There were about 7 steep grades I had to get off and walk, along with 75% of the cyclists out there. They were steep! Plus a lot of rollers.


The rest stops were well stocked, and the weather was good- about 65 degrees and overcast, but it was a little windy. Luckily it was a headwind out, so it was nice to fly on the way back. Though I did have an annoying situation- a woman was going slower than me, so I passed her. She immediately passes me back and then slows down. Instead of leapfrogging again, I just sat on her wheel and tried to draft, and it worked. I could feel it was easier with her blocking the wind for me. I think I pissed her off, but she couldn't (or wouldn't) go faster. And she had a little helmet mirror, so she could see where I was. And I wasn't going to pass her again until I knew I could stay ahead, which didn't come for another 10 miles on a long downhill where I could get into aero. Good practice drafting for me. The few times people have tried to draft off me, I will slow down and make them pass. But sometimes overly competitive people can be so silly, causing themselves more trouble.


I wound up with a total of 63, so I can check off the metric century off my list. I felt really good at the end too, though I didn't have my running shoes to do a brick like a couple of the other T3ers out there. A 10 mile run planned for tomorrow, depending on the weather. I guess I could do it inside at the gym (ugh!) Hopefully it will be clear!

2 comments:

everybody's entitled said...

What is a brick?

Tia said...

A brick is when you do two workouts back to back- so in this case, a bike ride followed by a run. But it could be any two workouts. It's named for either stacking workouts like bricks on top of each other, or how your legs usually feel during the second workout.