I received a call from the doctor that did my surgery last week. He said “Give me a call tomorrow between 9am and 6pm” on the message. Thanks to those goofy doctor/patient codes, he can’t just say, “Hey, you don’t have cancer… but I think you have herpes” on an answering machine. By the way, I don’t have either. Go me.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a bit nervous, and I am not a good liar. Our friend Boo once told me, “You’ve met your bullshit quota for life.” I just want things to calm down for a little while. They don’t have to be awesome, just “normal”. Whatever that is…

At the end of the 200k this last weekend, Maggie Williams asked how I did and I was explaining that it was an off day for a number of reasons. She mentioned that she thought I was usually near the front of the pack. I knew that I’ve never been there over the long haul, but I tend to start stronger and finish in a lot slower. I don’t feel like I waste energy, I just tire over the distance. It feels like I slow down to about the same rate regardless of how strong I start, so I might as well start strong and get some miles on the board.

It got me thinking about past rides though. I thought about it enough to actually type it down in Notepad for a little comparison (oh boy, this is sounding a little pathetic now).
100k Urban Popular - 5:50
200k Chili Feed - 11:24
300k Capitol - 19:20
300k Hood Canal - 15:19
400k 3 Passes - 20:48
600k 4 Passes - 35:45
200k Tahuya Hills - 12:31
200k RUSA 10th - 12:10

The reason this is interesting to me is that on rides at 200k and under, I have a pretty awful pace. I’ve had legitimate excuses on each, but that is all that they are… excuses. 100k in 6 hours is nothing to brag about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining about it. It just gives me something to push past.

Interestingly, on the rides that are stretched out, I do much better over the distance. The first 300k is an exception to this. We had a sit down dinner and rode well into the night. Plus, I think that Chris and I wanted our wives to be out in the cold all night since they were volunteering.

On the second 300k, I felt much worse but still finished with a little over 5 hours per 100k. The 400k challenged me with mountains that I had never dreamed of cycling over in the past and I still did about 5 hours or so.

My strongest ride to date was the 600k though. I spent 4 and a half hours at the overnight stop, and still did better than my average 200k.

None of this means much. Just a random observation. My goal at the start of every line is simply to finish, and that will not change. With a little bit more training and possibly a motor, I might be able to pick up that pace a bit.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 10:05 am and is filed under bicycling, cancer, sir. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.