A new route for me today, and a longer one than usual also.
Clocking in at ~52km, the Eastern Eight loop sees a full traversal of Titan’s Grove, Fuego Flats, and Ocean Boulevard in both directions.
I went into this one with the idea of taking it at a slightly lower pace, as I am all too aware that my stamina for longer rides will have tanked due to my lack of >1 hour events in recent months.
Even so, I feel like I judged this one about perfectly. There wasn’t much left in the tank by the end of it, but I also never felt completely spent, even on the climbs. Nor was I trying too.
One challenge today was that I had to get this one in much earlier than usual, as I was heading out from late morning to go to Manchester. That meant my start time was dictated (9am), and if I missed it there wouldn’t be much I could do about it.
Perhaps starting earlier was for the best.
Being a 9am start I got in no warm up. I was up at 7am, but then fell back asleep and woke again at 8.10.
From there, having had my coffee and toast, it was almost 9am and I had to be on the bike and ready to go. As such I took my warm up in the early part of the ride. No pressure there.
Beyond that, I had so many mini disconnections during this ride that it made it very hard to engage in the social side of things. I’d put a message in, then it would disappear after sending it, then I’d “reconnect” (not that my rider or the group ever disappeared from the screen), and then I’d come back and would have either missed the reply or suddenly a bunch of messages came through as my computer seemed to be playing catch up.
That was quite frustrating.
In the end I just gave up trying to chat and instead focused on seeing out the ride. In truth I was more than ready for it to be over by the second pass of Titan’s Grove. That climb, forwards or back, is not one of my favourites. I’d say it compares to the Jungle Circuit for me, in terms of routes I like to ride.
Anyway, that’s the long one ticked off. It’s far later in the day now and I’m truly knackered. So I’m calling it there. Glad to have it in the books but boy, am I ready for a couple of days off the bike now. I’ll go for a nice long walk tomorrow morning, then get back into it from Tuesday.
