50 Mile Bike - Longest Ride of the Season

I had my longest ride of the season at 50 miles this past weekend, and while I felt mostly good throughout the entire ride, it definitely whipped my butt for the rest of the day.

I was riding with a new group – one that Ericka had ridden with a few weeks prior, but that I was unfamiliar with. I had ridden this route only once before, a few years ago, so while I wasn’t super familiar with the course, at least I knew what to expect in some sense. We got an early start at 6:45 a.m., which I was completely thankful for after completing a 25-mile ride and 1.5 mile walk the day before, starting at 2:00 p.m. – just about the most brutal time of day to start such a task.

Bill was our fearless leader, and while Tyson and Kenny kept on pace with him, Ericka and I often brought up the rear – more so on the hills. We came across some mild rollers the first 20 miles, including one long sucker that seemed to go on forever! We started at Iroquois park and made our way towards JMF – although we didn’t ride through JMF, which saved our legs a bit on the way out to the flood wall in Valley Station. It was mostly shady, which also helped keep us cool early on. We made a quick bathroom stop about halfway through at the boat docks in PRP, then continued our trek west as the sun only got hotter throughout the morning.

I was playing with my nutrition, bringing with me a torpedo and one bottle filled with Infinit, while another contained only water. I didn’t bring any foods that required chewing, as I really wanted to see how I’d do with ONLY liquid nutrition. As has been the case in so many past rides, I started to feel myself bonk a bit with 10 miles left to go. And it was even more noticeable after the ride when I mentioned to Ericka that while the liquid nutrition seemed to work okay on the bike, I’d be in big trouble trying to go out for a half-marathon right after if I didn’t take in something more. I bought some Belvita breakfast crackers, which are thin and small and should be easy to consume during a ride, as well as some Fig Newtons. I’ll play around with these edibles during the ride next week, which should be a 55-miler or so.

Despite having a proper bike fit last year, my shoulders and neck do still feel a bit sore during and after long rides, but it’s much better than it had been prior – I’m chalking this up to “just the way that it is,” and dealing with it the best I can. My speed was a bit faster during this bike as well, at an average of 15.9 moving pace – the fastest I’ve ridden so far during a training ride. I’m still a bit nervous going into Ohio, especially thinking about the 13.1 mile run that will come afterwards, but I have plenty of long rides coming up during the next 6 weeks that will hopefully ease my mind about that – both physically and mentally. And although I’d hate to see a replay of Muncie 2015, in which I walked most of the half-marathon portion, I know that at the very least walking will get it done just as well as running – it just may take quite a bit longer.