Sunday 12 April 2015

An Eye Opener

Today (12th April 2015),  there was a single day riding initiative called The Women's Ride Day. I signed up to join the girls at Fondo as I am a HUGE fan of their cycling gear - I have bought the Disco and the Snow kits. I knew that the Fondo ride was going to consist of rolling hills but I had no idea how I was not prepared for it.

Fondo - http://fondo.com.au


My last hilly ride was the Whistler Gran Fondo ride at which I did the 120km (2000m elevation) in over 7 hours. This ride was in September 2014 on the back of a 7 week holiday. No training, just survived the ride. 

Since returning to Melbourne, I had only ridden Beach Road as it was close to Tri season and the TT bike came out of hiding. My last long ride was the Challenge Melbourne event where I rode 90km and ever since the 2nd Feb, my long rides have been Beach Road ~ 40 - 60km. No hills and nothing more than 60km. 

The Strava link to the ride course was posted on the Fondo event page so I had a look and was worried. https://www.strava.com/routes/2051262?mc_cid=2a74f878de&mc_eid=%5BUNIQID%5D Note: This was not the course I ended up doing today. 

My anxiety was playing up again to the point where I lost sleep on Saturday night - Sweating in my sleep, headaches, loss of sleep and shocking dreams. I actually contemplated pulling out at about 4am. But I am glad I got all my shit together and left the house at 6am....

Like with all trips for rides, I always find a toilet (most likely a maccas) before the ride. The nervousness of the event made my stomach hurt and needed to visit a toilet bad. Luckily, the closest Maccas was only 1km from the starting point on the ride. 

Once I got all my stuff together and went to the starting point, it was great to see a familiar face of a girl I used to train with. There was about 50+ ladies there with most wearing Fondo kits. 

They decided to split the group into 3 - fast, medium and social pace. I decided to join the social pace due to my lack of riding as mentioned before. About 10km into the ride, I knew that I had signed up to something beyond my current capabilities. I was so slow going up those hills, I had no power in my legs and for the life of me could not get my cadence up beyond 40rpm. I had done my first long run on Saturday (the day before) - it was only 10km but my quads were still sore. This may have attributed to the lack of power. 

I had to unclip out of my pedals twice as I couldn't get up those hills, I felt like I had ran out of gears. At the 20km mark, I decided to pull the pin. It was 1/4 into the ride and due my speed, I was breaking up the group dynamics too much. One of the guides would stay with the slowest rider at the back and I felt that I was more of a burden than anything. Once we got onto Main Street, I decided to turn left and head towards Eltham than turn right towards Kangaroo Ground. I was by myself but had ridden in these parts of Melbourne before. I decided to take the bike path and rode along the Main Yarra Trail (90% gravel) back to Heidelberg from Templestowe. I am glad I decided to ride the rest of the way home instead of catching the train (which I was totally prepared for and why I brought my Myki card). 

Although I was totally shattered from the ride (read - my body as well as my ego), I know that there is so much work that I need to do in order for me to ride the 3 peaks in March of 2016. Not only do I have to get stronger going up the hills, I also have to gain confidence riding down hills too. I have already planned on getting back to the hills next Saturday - even if I am riding by myself, I need to gain more strength in my legs. Riding along Beach Road for 7 months does nothing for riding up hills. I am determined on getting stronger on the bike - this is one small goal to achieve for 2015.

A small snippet of my climbs - not ready for it.

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