Two long rides

Saturday started with a 3000m swim of long, steady sets. I did 800m of pulling, 600m of free with a bit of backstroke thrown in, 400m of pulling, and then 200m free, all sandwiched by a warm-up and cool-down. Afterwards, I hopped on the bike for 4 hours on the trainer expecting my legs to feel great, as they felt during Friday's run. Instead, my legs were sluggish. I was slowly able to elevate the HR throughout the ride as my legs warmed up, and I averaged 137 bpm for the second hour and 142 bpm for the third hour. I toned it down a bit for the fourth hour to save something for Sunday.

On Sunday, the weather was nice so Stacey and I ventured outside. The plan was to ride up through Rochester to Stoney Creek Metro Park, do a few loops around the 6 to 7 mile route in the park, and then head home. We hoped to get in 4 hours, then do a 1 hour transition run. Stacey had wrote out directions for getting from Rochester to the park, but due to some miscommunication we didn't bring the directions along with us on the ride. No worries, we thought, we remember the route well enough. Turns out...not so much. Our ad hoc route took us on rails-to-trails gravel paths, down dirt roads, through a foot-wide gap in fencing around the park, and even along a mountain bike path for a short distance. We passed through industrial grave yards, by what appeared to be an old mining operation, and through the landfill district (I was amazed to see so many landfills in close proximity to one another, and even more amazed to see houses boardered on two or three sides by different landfills...SE MI sure is a beautiful place). We even had an encounter with an obese gas station attendent. Stacey bought a Snickers bar and a Coke from the station, and the attendent asked how long Stacey was riding for. While Stacey and I were outside eating and taking a break, the attendent came outside for her break. Interrupted by sips of pop from her two-liter mug (the biggest I've ever seen!), hits of her cigarette, and coughing like a coal miner, she mentioned that she wished she had somebody to do four hour bike rides with. I get conflicted feelings whenever I come across people like this. Of course I feel sorry for them, but personal responsibility has to come into play at some point.

Back to the actual ride, I didn't feel much fatigue at the start of the ride, and my HR quickly elevated to an easy 130 bpm. I maintained my HR in the 130 bpm range for the first hour and a half or so. Once we got into the park, I picked up the effort to 140 bpm for stretches. I kept expecting my legs to begin burning while climbing the hills in the park or riding into the strong wind, but where that normally occurs in relation to RPE, I felt nothing. After leaving the park, I had a fair amount of riding at a lower HR as Stacey and I tried to find a safe route home. Once we got back to streets we knew around the 3 hour mark, I took the HR up to 145 to 150 for a while because I felt like riding harder (I credit the Snickers bar and Coke). I finished the ride feeling like I could have gone much longer, whereas by the end of most long rides I'm ready to get off the bike.

The ride ended up taking longer than planned as a result of getting lost (I didn't count down time in the ride time), so I didn't do the transition run. Still, 9+ hours for the weekend ain't too shabby.