First annual snot rocket ride

First brick workout of the year. This is a weekend of firsts...first outdoor ride, first brick and first race (tomorrow).

I decided to do the Belleville ride I did last year on March 10th, although it would be more aptly named the New Glarus ride since I ride through Belleville on my way to New Glarus and then home. New Glarus is Wisconsin's Little Switzerland. It's a fun town to ride through on a long ride.

When I left the house the temperature was about 35 degrees and I think it may have dropped a bit on my ride because it was frosty out there. So I've decided to rename this ride the Snot Rocket Ride. I will do this ride every year in the middle of March and leave a 50 mile trail of frozen snot.




Like last year, this ride tore me apart. It was rough out there. It was good on the way out. The temperature was good and I had a tailwind. I wasn't working that hard, and my average speed when I hit Belleville was 20 mph. I didn't check my speed in New Glarus, but I'm guessing it was around 19. I stopped briefly at the park in New Glarus to eat a Clif bar and bundle up a bit more. The wind was getting cold and I needed to put my headband on to keep my ears warm. My skull cap doesn't do a great job covering my ears.

This is when things got ugly. I had a headwind most of the way back from New Glarus, and it was a cold, cold wind. The hills didn't get to me like they did last year (well, not as much as last year), but the temperature did. I was having a hard time staying focused and I was dreaming of a hot shower. By the time I got home my average speed had dropped to 17 and I couldn't feel my fingers or toes. But no hot shower for me. Not yet....

I had a short run scheduled for today, so I figured I may as well do that right after my ride to save time and get my first brick workout in. I was so cold when I got home I did not want to go back out. It took me a little while to get changed into my running gear and then I ran my hands under warm water for a few minutes to get the feeling back because they were hurtin. Then I threw on my new Zoots, and headed out.

My legs were spent from the ride so the run was a little rough. Plus, I quickly discovered I didn't do a good job with my nutrition on the bike. After ten minutes of running, I was no longer dreaming of a hot shower. I was dreaming of Little Ceasars.

The Zoots were good, but the back of the shoe feels a little weird. I think they'll be good for short races because you can get into them so fast, but I wasn't as impressed as I was hoping to be. They're light and comfortable enough (I wore wool socks so I don't know what they're like barefoot yet), but the back of the shoe is really tall and feels a little goofy. Plus they don't have a lot of support so they won't be good for long races. Maybe I just need a little more time to get used to them.

My expectations for the Shamrock Shuffle tomorrow have lowered to nothing. My legs are trashed right now. I'm not used to long outdoor rides with hills and wind followed by a 30 minute run. Just think about how sore I'm going to be after the Ironman. Compared to that, this workout was nothing.

Here's the cycling data from MotionBased, easily the slowest website on the web. I need a new website to upload GPS data to.


Here's the run data...




While I was waiting for the temp to warm up this morning, I came across this picture. He didn't even let go of the umbrella...