Stompin’ it on my old stompin’ grounds
Had a chance to get out for a decent ride today. Weather wasn’t horrid nor was it perfect. The kind where it’s easy to get out the door, but you grumble a bit every know and then about how it could be just a bit better. There was a constant North-Northwesterly wind at about 15-20 mph. Pretty rough for around here, but I found it to be suprisingly mild as compared to the steady 30 mph winds with 50+ gusts that I got used to in Colorado. It’s also crazy because there are these long tall thin things on the side of the road that sometimes block them (I was told they are called “Trees”)
I decided to head south to Naples to hit up my favorite climb, West Gannet. It’s pale by Colorado standards, but still a good climb. 10k and averages about 5%, but it has a good kicker at the start, and a few small bumps near the end that make it tough. Having a brutal headwind all the way up the climb didn’t help today, but it wasn’t all bad.
Was a nice fast ride down with the tailwind. I felt really good going up the climb and throttled myself waaay back on the start so as not to push too hard. I gave it some gas when needed, but really struggled to keep the power up when the climb fell flat (something I’ve always struggled with), but managed a nice solid effort up the climb fully. Took me 28:10 (PR is 23:30), I’m pretty sure the wind killed me and my power while super high and PB for the season was great, I really never ‘suffered’ and held plenty in reserve. I felt really great heading up the climb and definitely this thing called ‘air’ helps one to breathe when going uphill.
After the climb it was pretty much, man vs headwind the final miles home. I finished strong and felt really great. An awesome day of training, so inspiring that I signed up for an actual road race. We’ll see if my Cat 2 license still holds true 
Tomorrow, I’ll go play in the dirt on my road bike and pretend I’m chasing some fools down around the Arenberg Forest, then watch it for real on Versus.
Oh, found the results from Ouachita Challenge, 15th place. 36 finishers out of 100, not too bad. Pull the 30 off for the flat debacle and I’m easy 7th overall, some racing and maybe coulda cracked the top 5??? So I’m pretty happy with that.
April 13th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Welcome back, Jason! Enjoying the return of that Finger Lakes riding scenery on your blog. Cross paths with ya soon, perhaps Rambler if I can fit in the drive time to western NY (we’ll see…)
terry
April 14th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Thanks Terry! Hope you can make it!