Here's a tip if you're struggling to train (especially in the mornings):
Put your clothes out (and everything else you'll need) the night before, and set an alarm for the latest possible time. It may seem like a small thing, but in the morning, small things are what you don't want to do. Put a drink in the freezer (if it's going to be hot), and have some energetic music ready in the morning to get you going while you get ready.
Make sure you have the right nutrition waiting for you when you get back. Bananas and Powerade do it for me.
When you wake up, just think about getting yourself out the door. Once you're at the door, you'll be glad you got up, and begin to feel how good it is to be out.
After a Soju Sleep delivered me to a 5:20am wake up (I woke up before the alarm went off, which was set to play the Lost In Translation song: Are You Awake?), I opened the blinds and saw the sky was pretty grim and grey. It was yesterday too, but when I walked to the Lake yesterday it was balmly and breezy. Rain or shine, there was no way I was going to pass up this cycle, especially with the sights and sounds of stage 14 (courtesy of AFN's 2am TDF broadcast) still buzzing in my brain.
I had put my clothes out, water bottles in the freezer, but left one thing undone: to unscrew my wheel magnet from my Zipp wheel, so only got on the road at about 6:10am. The temperature must have been in the low 20's. Let's check...
My Polar gives me an average temperature of 22C, and a maximum of 24, which is perfect cycling weather.
My biggest concern was the liquid gash on my bum. During Tuesday's ride, I felt a pinching sensation, which grew progressively worse...until it became a biting/tearing/agonising feeling. I bought a new pair of Saeco shorts in South Africa, at the Argus Expo. They looked a lot inferior to the ones I bought here, and they proved to be so. The seams sit out far too much, and I was sitting on part of seam and rubbing against it and the saddle during my 3h20m cycle. The result of this was a wound that hurts whenever I sit down. If I sort of lie on a chair, then it's less painful. What's worse is since the outer layer of skin has been gouged out, there's a wound now that simply won't heal, and is sort of gelatinous the whole time. Ew, I know. I have a special powder for drying up wounds of this sort, but given the very humid conditions, and the fact that the wound is in the warmest, sweatiest part of my body, well, nearly a week later it is still...well, gross.
So today I opted for my RIDE magazine shorts, which has a huge shammy and they're just really comfortable. Most of the way, I felt pretty comfortable, which says a lot for those shorts. I'm tempted to burn the other shorts, but I guess it's possible that once I'm slimmer they'll be less problemmatic.
I rode in and out of a few light drizzles. Cycling in the rain is usually miserable, but this was quite pleasant. Like a soft cool cushion. Sunday mornings are the best time to go cycling because everyone is sleeping late or hungover or off to church, which leaves the roads quiet and ready for me. Crappy weather also keeps families from taking the kids on an outing. Today was exceedingly quiet.
At Imjingak (about 38km out) I noticed some flags fluttering along the long straight highway - quite an attractive area this, and the flags looked handsome framing the road in red and gray. I stopped at a bridge and...well...found one flag lying on the road. I'm sure the wind just blew it off (evil grin), despite each one being tied in 3 or 4 places with wire and plastic ties. Then I went around an offramp that was also festooned with these flags, and lo and behold, as soon as no cars were in sight, another flag magically drifted down and found its way into the back of my cycling shirt. Really bizarre flag behaviour. So I really (really) just did my civic duty and tucked them into the back of my shirt. They'll make nice decorative accoutrements for my apartment.
Enjoyed the road back. Used some fresh water out of my bottle to wash my glasses. The most annoying thing about rain is that your vision gets a bit fuzzy as the droplets build up on the lenses.
The fields are incredibly green, almost luminous, in the rain. It's a good feeling to be out there in the early morning, and amazing that a racing machine like the Cannondale CAAD can move you so far and wide so effortlessly.
I didn't go via the huge LG/Philips complex this time, which meant I had to go up a fairly steep climb.
My average heart rate today was 144bpm, but on this climb it shot up to 169. That's about 95-98% of my max, on a bicycle anyway. I hit the 170's in Bloemfontein earlier this year trying to stay with the elite bunches (and failing).
Anyway, was pretty winded and a little dizzy afterwards, but felt glad that I'd shocked my body with something that would really get the blood pumping the the globules of fat in motion.
I had this peculiar vision of my butt as this huge, overripe tomato being squeezed against an upturned spoon. The tomato is so big and heavy (and the spoon quite small, that the sides of the tomato eventually begin to rupture. Now substitute big fat arse for tomato and narrow slr saddle for the spoon.
Felt a bit dizzy and tired at 50km, which gives me an idea how much I'm likely to suffer in Cheolwon which is almost twice that (90km).
Ate one of those gelatin thingies and felt better a while later.
There's a long road flat, straight road through gorgeous countryside, which eventually crosses a wide river (when you look down there are usually a couple of people fishing on its banks) and then the road gets squeezed into one narrow lane with huge bunkers and steel stuff on the sides. You find things like this, often fortified cement and usually on the top of roads (there's another one at the top of that steep climb I mentioned). If North Korea ever invades, and try to drive their tanks in Seoul, then these structures will be exploded or filled with troops (there are turrets in a lot of them too).
As I passed through the narrow lane (can be dangerous as oncoming trucks and cars sometimes play chicken with each other, and they tend to ignore cyclists) a squirrel bounded across the narrow path, just a metre or so in front of me. Had big fluffy tufts on its ears. Really cute in a Disney sort of way. Felt for the critter, 'cos he had nowhere much to do, and neither did I, as two cars waited for me to come out, and I think one was whooshing up behind me.
Took it easy the rest of the way, mindful of the increasing traffic as I approached the outer limits of Ilsan. Chose a better route this time, the one I always took when I lived in Bamgashi, and headed past Corneli's apartment and LaFesta into Lake Park. That's a nice way to round off the ride. Saw a lot of Ilan Marathon Runners (in orange) stretching near the Lake.
Got back to my apartment in 2h56m56sec, did an extra 200m so I could get the kilometres to tick over to exactly 80km.
Here is some more data from today's cycle:
2733 kcalories
350 metres of vertical climbing
Average altitude: 28m Above Sea Level.
Average speed 27.1km/h (max 54.5km/h)
I'd like to get my average speed up to 30km/h at least. Today with the slick roads and flag fetching, speed wasn't really a priority as much as getting some distance into my legs.
After today's cycle I'm sure my body will throw on another 1-2kg like it did last time.
Will swim this evening and check my weight.
Looking forward to watching Stage 15 tonight. It's the make or break stage, the most difficult of the whole Tour, and we'll see whether Lance has it in him to hold onto his yellow jersey. If he can withstand the attacks of other riders, especially guys like Basso, today, then he'll probably win this tour too. This is the last real chance other riders have to take time out of Lance.
I've also downloaded the movie Fantastic Four. So going to watch that and relax. It's still early: 10:39am. Nice to have cycled, showered and now have the rest of the day ahead to relax and enjoy.
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