Brewery to Fairmont - Winter Group Ride

Garmin Connect Ride Data:
Garmin Ride Summary:
Distance: 53.21 mi
Elevation Gain: 2,611 ft
Moving Time: 03:32:38
Avg Speed: 15.0 mph
Max Speed: 33.7 mph

Group: Gary, Mike, Joe, Elizabeth, Rod, Ron, Jamie, Glenn, Peter, Neal, Matt and me
Goal: My goal was to enjoy the winter group ride with friends and get in some training time

The Ride: The way the weather predictions were in the days proceeding this ride it sounded really bad. It had the temperature at 32 (feels like 22) and winds up to 10 mph. By Thursday I was not getting any email chatter concerning a weekend ride so I put out a feeler email to see if anyone was interested. Much to my surprise we had a really good attendance today with 12 cyclists. The weather was not near as bad as indicated except the winds were starting to kick up in the last miles. I am glad I did not pursue more miles with the wind increasing.

Matt helped lead us out toward Redbud and do a store stop at the Sunoco and then we returned on the usual roads. There were some in the group that I did not say a word at all during the entire ride, but my hope is that everyone had as much fun as I did and got in some good training or recreation time as well. After training indoors and being away for the holidays it was good to see some of my cycling buddies and be out on the road again. On the way back I must have split off from the group and was ahead of them, but it was a good time for me to set down a steady pace and get in some sustained power output using RPE.

Even with intense indoor intervals my CTL in WKO was dropping like a rock I needed a longer endurance ride to help stop the decline. I need a lot more training time to be honest.

Nutrition Intake During and after the Course:(1) 24 oz. bottle of water with Hammer Heed,BCAA and Glutamine, (1) Hammer gel (1) Cliff bar (1) 40 gram Whey protein post ride recovery drink .

The Weather: Sunny, Start @ 35 degrees, Stiff winds in the last miles.

Bike: LOOK 585, Garmin 705, Powertap wired

Overall Power Data: 
Hub batteries died at the ride start. The information below was calculated with WKO+ and perceived effort as manual entry.
 Entire workout (176 watts):
    Duration:      3:33:00
    Work:          2249 kJ
    TSS:           274.4 (intensity factor 0.88)
    Norm Power:    176
    Distance:      52.21 mi