Swelterin Weekend
Similar routine to last weekend. Hit up some Dawn Patrol with Hanggi, and this time Jim-Jam Hogan joined up with us for our ride. We decided to shuttle them up to the top and Start from Ontario County Park (OCP) and then they’d grab their car at Parish Hill and head into work, while I continued my journey onward. Things started off nice and fun and fine, hit up OCP, Cutler, Closed road down into Naples and then climbed Parish Hill. We mad our way over to Hi-Tor and then ripped down the DEC descent and they took off for work, while I had some more ‘work’ ahead of me. Temps were picking up quite a bit now, and I really hadn’t eaten a ton of food, so I stopped into the local gas station, grabbed some fresh water a red bull and some food to continue onwards.
I made my way up East Hill and felt really good. In fact, I had to double check that I had actually climbed it as I flew right up it. I headed through Hi-Tor’s fire-roads and added some more climbing and descended down so I could climb Brink Hill. I flew up Brink Hill, and was still quite surprised as I usually suffer at the top where it gets ultra-steep, but I was feeling great still. A quick scoot up Pulver Rd, where I was totally exposed in the hot sun, and things started to sloooow down. Thankfully, I hit the Italy hill descent and had some fun ripping it down. At the bottom, I decided to sit in the shade for a few minutes, eat some food and access my situation. I was super low on water and still had an hour of riding or more to get back into Naples and grab some food and water. I was praying the ol rundown convenience store was open in Italy and luckily it was open. 2 cold bottles of water and a coca cola had me feeling much better. Though, nothing in the store looked appetizing and that would be a big mistake.
I climbed up Basset to Burke Hill and made my way into Hi-Tor again and was feeling a lil bit slow in the singletrack, but felt pretty good by the time I hit the DEC descent and really ripped it up. Only thing left was the 10k climb up Gannett Hill back to the car. Open road climb at the 5:15 mark in the hot sun, and feeling tired, made for an absolute death march. I wanted to see what I could give so I gassed it for the first mile and then absolutely crawled on the hot pavement up the hill. Helmet off, gloves off, jersey unzipped, and out of water by this point. I came painfully close to either collapsing from the heat and having to walk up the hill. Thankfully after 45 minutes of climbing in the baking sun, I had made it back to OCP (I usually do the climb in sub 30 on the mtb). I was super happy to dive into the showers at the campground and then head down the hill and gorge myself with some fries & mayo, chesseburger and choc milk shake! It tasted sooo very good.
Sunday, I got a far too late start. 92 degrees and I rolled out the door at 11am for 2.5 hours of tempo work. I was a little tentative as to how I was going to recover as last week, I had nothing in the tank for Sunday’s efforts. However, I hit the gas after a few minutes of warming up and was able to ride pretty easily in upper tempo fairly easily for the next 45 minutes. I actually had to keep myself from riding too hard as I felt really good. What really got the juices flowing though, was when I was soft pedaling after the tempo session on a slight descent and a tri-geek came zipping by me. Yah, can’t let that happen. I sat off his tail riding tempo for minute and then when the road turned ever so slightly upward, it was time to go in for the kill. Closed the gap, and then rolled up next to him and while he was suffering away on the uphill grind, chatted his ears off. (no he wasn’t a weekend warrior tri-guy, he was a heavy tri racer and was in the midst of going around the lake). Nothing like tr-geek hunting on the hills, they make it far too easy. Anyway’s after that it was rolling some tempo to refill the water bottles and finished the ride off with a nice 20 min sweet spot effort. I felt good and strong on sunday so was happy with that.
After sunday’s ride, took the Lakester down to the State Park and put some time in chilling in the water. Felt really good and was a nice break from the brutal heat of the weekend. I was crushed this weekend though after all the riding! Both sat and sun, I slept for 10 hours solid so hoping the recovery is good and the rain stays away for Farmall #3 tomorrow night!
