We had a group of 7 Riders today with two of our regulars being absent and a new addition coming up from the B2 group. Head Coach Rick joined us for the first part of the ride which was new and different.
I had been having some seat issues with some significant discomfort in the nether regions after being in the saddle during the long mileage. I had tried to address it midweek by lowering the front tip of the seat. Unfortunately, I not only lowered the tip, I also managed to move the seat position. I fiddled with it three times during Tues nights spin class trying to find the correct position again. I thought I had it pretty much figured out but found out differently during the weekend ride. After a few miles, it became apparent that I had moved my seat too far forward and consequently, I was "short-stroking" meaning that I wasn't getting full extension with my legs during pedaling. Not good. After about 15 miles I started to get some knee pain. Luckily we stopped to eat and refill water bottles about 5 miles later and I got to mess with it again. My first stab was to move the seat back a bit. Got on and found that in doing so I had tipped the seat up to far again. Arghh. Of course, everyone's waiting for me. I mess with it again and tip the seat down being careful to not change anything else. Time to roll out. The new position felt a little weird as I my body position was tipped a bit forward putting more pressure on my wrists. After about 10 miles, everything felt fine and I was able to complete my ride.
Coach Rick, pointed out that one of the loops in Rancho Santa Fe was referred to as "Stud Loop". You get bragging rights if you can complete that rolling portion of about 4-5 miles while staying in your big ring. Me being me, I of course had to go for it. Mentor Jay gave me a few tips, particularly about conserving my momentum on the downhills and using it to get halfway up the inclines. Great advice. On the downhills, I cranked really hard to build up speed, got into an aerodynamic position and was able to make it up the hills much easier. It was pretty hard but I was able to do the entire loop.
We also did the faraday loop again which is another nice bit of climbing. The change from last week was adding an extra 5 miles to be able to climb Leucadia avenue, a fairly steep long climb. The weekday training is really helping out as I'm getting much stronger during the climbs. We finished up by climbing Torrey Pines again and this time I tried to challenge myself by not using my "alpine" aka granny gear and stayed in my middle ring the entire way.
Totals for the day were 65 tough miles with 3500+ feet of climbing good for about 3900 calories. Here's the map of the ride.
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