Brewery to Cagle Road - Steady Pace

Ride with GPS Data
Garmin Connect Data
Summary
Moving Time: 4:52:28
Distance: 80 miles
Avg Moving Speed 16.5 mph
Elevation Gain: 3,000 ft

Group (headed toward Fort Mt.): Me :-)
Group (headed toward Horn Mt.):  Gary,  Mike Q., Neal, Keith, Jamie, Chuck Peter, Diane, Mike R., Craig, Joe, Elizabeth, Edgar and a few more I believe.

Goal: Keep a steady pace if possible and try to end with about 300 TSS and 0.8 IF

The Ride: It was a tough struggle for me to decide to go on a solo training ride and especially when my start time and location lined up with my group of friends. Part of me really wanted to hang with them and I followed them the first couple of miles until our routes parted ways. I do hope they had a great time. From that turn forward it is sort of hard to do much on color commentary about my ride. I will just note a few things.

I suppose the most unsettling thing about going solo this morning was how dense the fog was and how long it remained with me on the route. I had on my vibrant yellow Sugoi Helium jacket with a red flashing light on the saddle, but I know that cars are not expecting cyclists to be out on these rural roads in this condition. Fortunately I am here to write this so everything went okay. It was nice that I only saw a handful of cars on the way up and most of them were going the other direction. One sheriff passed me so I supposed I had his approval. Other than that I really enjoyed the route. I do this route quite often, but it does not get old to me and I really enjoy Cagle Road for some reason.

Performance and training wise my goal was not necessarily to go out and hammer an eighty mile route today. I just wanted to pedal at a steady state and end with something reasonable so I can train tomorrow. Also to minimize any coasting, drafting was not an option and basically just make my legs feel virtually every mile. Out of the 5 hours on the road I had about ten minutes stopped and most of that was unfortunately waiting for the restroom at the gas station / turning point and a couple of very brief stops along the road.

I ended just under my intended goal, but that is okay. It is close enough and if I had gone much harder I would have gone over and that would make the intervals tomorrow suffer. I have my wife's blessing to go out tomorrow after church for the 2 x 60 minute intervals. I hope the legs can recover quickly because tomorrow afternoon is hammer time.

Nutrition Intake During and after the Course: ~40 oz. of water with Hammer Perpetuem, BCAA's, Gluatamine  (1) Cliff bar (1) Hammer Gel (1) 30 gram Whey protein post ride recovery drink (1) post ride Tuna sandwich on whole grain toast about an hour following the ride.

The Weather: Very heavy fog to sun much later, Start @ 39 degrees, End @ 57 degrees, calm air at the start in the fog with breezy conditions later in the ride.

Bike: LOOK 585, Garmin 800, Powertap SL+

Overall Power Data:
Entire workout (138 watts):
    Duration:      4:58:29 (5:08:03)
    Work:          2471 kJ
    TSS:           295.9 (intensity factor 0.772)
    Norm Power:    158
    VI:            1.15
    Distance:      80.414 mi
        Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    581    138     watts
    Speed:           0    32.1    16.2     mph
    Pace             1:52    0:00    3:43     min/mi
    Altitude:        640    905    746     ft
    Crank Torque:    0    1690    152     lb-in