A new found passion, a determination to complete what I failed in, assisted by tailwinds and a bright but chill morning, I achieved an important landmark in my 3rd innings with cycling. Yes, I successfully completed a 50km ride for the first time.
After I failed to complete the ambitious half century ride last time, I was cursing for not completing the last 13km stretch, but there were other reasons apart from my tiredness that I had to cut short my ride at 37km.
I started riding today at 6:45am after a sleep of just six and half hours. I am not a person who would like to have such a shorter sleep.
My my previous experience, I learned a few things, you can’t do much than just sticking to basics when you are riding against headwinds. This time I chose the same loop as last time but started riding in the opposite direction, the direction I wanted to approach home in the last time. The idea was to cover as much distance before the sun is hotter and get to a better road by the time I am about to get tired. Also, the stretch I struggled last time, since I was riding in the opposite direction, wind was to my support that against like last time and hence I found it easier.
I was welcomed by two inclines just before Budigere, one I climbed in the lowest of my 3 chain rings, but not on the lowest rear gear, but on the second I almost did it at 1-1 (it was the first time I ever used that combination)
The moment I reached Budigere, the situation changed, now wind was directly at me and I had a tough time initially. Then I remembered Venky‘s advice – “Focus on effort than speed”. I stuck to riding in an easy gear and concentrated on spinning over 60/70 rpm it worked and I completed the 40 km of my ride without much of any discomfort.
I reached Old Madras road and thought I can easily make it to home since I was in a more known territory, but I was wrong, above 40km I was starting to become more and more tired. I saw a group of three cyclists ahead of me who entered Old Madras road and they were speeding away. I tried to match their speed, but never succeeded. I just wanted to ride easily and reach home by then.
I stopped an equal number of times in the last 10km stretch as that I did in the first 40km to cool my heals and for hydration.
In the end, I made it home and looked at my Sportstracker app on Nokia 5800 – it showed 49.80! I was disappointed, I restarted and did a loop in next streets and made it to 50.20 km . It’s a moral victory eh? 🙂
Here is my route for today.
