My bike is falling apart, but I'm not...


Today is my scheduled long bike ride if you call 2 hours a long ride, followed by a 20-minute brick run. I wanted to see how it would go as I've had two rest days this week, one of which was yesterday. 

When I woke up, it was only 14C outside, and I don't like riding in cooler weather. Instead, I got on my computer and did a little work stuff, and around 10:45, I decided to get on my bike and ride. It was only 17C outside, and still more cool than I would have liked it to have been, but I wanted to finish earlier in the day than later. 

The minute I got on the bike, I felt stronger and more in control of it than I had since I started this journey seven weeks ago. My goal was to keep my cadence at 90 rpm and not care about the speed, being more focused on keeping my heart rate under 122 bpm. 

It was very windy today, more so than most days. Although I felt stronger, I thought this might be the day I could keep my heart rate low. That didn't happen. I tried, but I'm just not yet able physically. However, based on how I felt, it was noticeable that I was stronger on this ride than on the previous one. 

Even though it was colder and windier than usual, it was enjoyable. I was listening to The All-In Podcast. I usually listen to music, but I found this to be more enjoyable and make the ride feel faster. 

I tried to go aero for a bit, even though I had an armpad issue. Not a good move. It loosened the aero bar on the left side, started spinning, and was very loose. This is another reason that reaffirms purchasing a new bike was a good move. Not to mention, my gear switching is clunky and also slips. 


I feel more stable on the bike and when I do weight training. My neck also doesn't hurt anymore, or at least I didn't notice it. I've also noticed that my stomach isn't sticking out as much. 

After the bike, I did my brick run. It was more of a run than a walk, which is the opposite of my prior runs, albeit this run was slow. 

I've been wondering if my front wheel hub has resistance, keeping my bike ride average speeds low. Then I had a run off the bike at 7:56 p/km average and thought that maybe it's not the front wheel being an issue for why I'm going slow. In the past, I'd easily do a 5-minute per-kilometer average after each bike ride.

I looked at some old training pictures to see what type of sunglasses I wore. I didn't have issues being aero back then and being able to see in front of me, and I wanted to see which glasses I was wearing, as the problem could be the current glasses I'm using.
 

Looking at the pictures, I realized I was in much better shape than I had thought. Looking at these pictures, I didn't see I was in great shape. Fast-forward 13 years, and I see the difference clearly and am amazed I got into that type of shape. I was even making it to the podium in some races. 


Dinner was at Chuck's: ribeye steak, baked potato, Caesar salad, and many glasses of Diet Coke. There was no alcohol tonight. My day was spent finding another road trip college football game, and I bought tickets to the Syracuse game against Stanford in a couple weeks. I'm hooked on college football and think my goal might be to attend every college football game in the USA and collect a shirt. So far, I have Texas Longhorns, Penn State, and Michigan Wolverines. 

Bike - 2:08:44 / 52.28 km / 24.4 kph avg

Run - 19:53 / 2.5 km / 7:56 p/km avg

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