Inside Out

Outside in, to be precise.  Outdoors on Sunday, indoors today.

On Sunday, I rode the Dublin Grade loop clockwise: up Tunnel, down Pinehurst, through Moraga and Lafayette, Walnut Creek, straight all the way down to Dublin, right turn, up and down Dublin Grade, through Castro Valley, all the way up Redwood to Oakland.  Much of this ride is flat.  Moraga to Dublin has no hills to speak of, save for a couple of bumps.  There are four climbs of any significance on the entire route: Tunnel, Dublin Grade, and Redwood twice because it climbs out of Castro Valley golf course, descends and climbs again into Oakland.  I had Floyd for company from home to Danville, then we met Gary, who accompanied me for the rest of the ride, while Floyd turned around.

I felt good almost the whole time.  Riding with Floyd was harder.  I was glad we had a red light at Stone Valley intersection in Alamo, where the light is always red, and I could rest a bit.  My legs were sucking wind a bit until we unclipped.  The 30 seconds of waiting for the light to change before we decided to run the red provided just enough recovery time and I felt comfortable the rest of the way.  I climbed smartly and always tried to ride at conversational pace.  As a result, I had enough in the tank to do the second Redwood climb in the big ring.  Before you heap praise, note that my big ring is a 46 and I was in 21 in the rear, so I wasn't exactly turning a monster gear, but after spending all day of spinning up hills it was nice to do something different, something that made me think that I'm strong even though it hurt more than I'd anticipated or would have liked.

Even with that last bit of masochism, I felt surprisingly good and fresh at the end of the ride.  Not sure how far I rode -- having done the ride without a computer -- but I think it's a 70+ mile loop.  Fresh enough to contemplate Napa Century next Sunday.  I'm pretty sure I can do it comfortable if I ride smart -- a familiar enough refrain...

Today, I did a recovery spin in class for 46:46 to celebrate the 46th consecutive day of riding.  I'm becoming a bit concerned about this habit of riding the same number of minutes as the day of the streak -- in a couple of months these rides will stretch to 1:46 if I continue with this and what of next spring?  I have a few weeks to figure out how to deal with this.

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