Saturday, June 8, 2013

Old And Happy

One of my strengths has been my ability to recover. After a climb I always felt it, but the old hairy leg muscles would relax and be ready for more in less than 5 minutes. That, along with being ready for more hard miles in a day or two has helped me put in some good, long, hard, miles over the years.
Today, and two weeks ago, (both centuries) my muscles were not interested, at all, in relaxing and getting ready for the next challenge. In the past I could push them and make them do what I wanted...mind over matter. But, the last two centuries I've done the quads just shut down, after a hard climb, and there was nothing I could do to get them to fire back up. This has been very frustrating.
I understand my age is affecting my cycling performance, and even though I do say it's frustrating, I do get it. I know that this happens and is happening to people my age.
At about the 80 mile mark today the quads just said no. High cadence, water, drafting nothing worked. I was screwed and wound up getting dropped with about 10 miles to go. On future centuries I'm going to try taking some Gu at the 70 mile mark and see if that motivates my muscles more.

All this being said, I still came in with a Hammer Hundred today. I along with 7 or 8 others took a hundred hilly miles of rubber off our skinny tires and did it in just under 5 hours of saddle time. I'm actually very pleased with today's effort. But even more pleasing to me was, Gabrielle was with us, and on her first ever century she averaged 20.1 mph. Kind of proud of that.

Great group of riders on an old favorite route. Very Nice! 101/20.1




2 comments:

amy said...

you aren't getting old Tom. You are normal. I always feel that way after a hill. Always have. If turning normal is a result of time passing, then you are going to be just fine for another 70years.

mrbill said...

Tom, you didn't get dropped, you were so far ahead that you were alone and thought you'd been dropped. As we age the need to fantasize increases greatly.
Liked the pictures of the group, looks like your daughter is a chip off the old block, it's all in the Genes, that's what Jerry says.