October Training Ride

October is here and another round of training to look forward to for the ITI.  After a lukewarm summer of training for races, mostly local running races, I am excited about tackling another training season for the ITI. My intent is to go to Nome and hope I can tackle improvement on my previous time as I did this year with the 350, thanks primarily to LWcoaching and good trails.  I will be using Lynda again and given the family and work life I am super stoked to follow blindly where someone else is telling me what to do! All I have to do is follow directions and not think too much.

I started last week with diving into the training schedule and finished my first 6 hr training ride on Friday.  Instead of risking a terribly boring 6 hrs I opted to drive 20 miles down the coast and start the ride on a beautifiul flat section of beach for the first 5 miles before hopping on the gravel road and turn inland towards Council.  Depending on the weather and wind I was aiming for a 60-70 mile ride total.  The goal was to at least make it to the top of skookum pass (~1200 ft) which is a gradual rolling ascent to 500 ft with a sharp climb the last 1 mile which is much steeper to top out the pass.  I fully intended to take pictures with my iphone but it ran out of juice in the 1st 10 miles before turning inland.  Someday I'll have to get a real camera so I can capture the incredible scenery and maybe even the 4 bears I saw grazing the tundra.

Overall, I worked on my nutritiion keeping a mild-moderate effort and basically getting my body used to a long ride again.  The beautiful day was a cool 35 degrees and some wind, which happened to switch direction midway up the pass (yes a head wind both ways) but it was just freeing to get out in the country a bit.  Only saw 2 vehicles on the road and otherwise the whole place to myself.  At the end of the ride the last 10 miles of flat road and beach to the truck were weary legs but the 62 miles were done and it was simply satisfaction.  The following day my body had no kinks or soreness other than quads so a good sign I think.