Saturdays Ride - "The Failed Ride" Revisited

Last week was our failed ride. Surprisingly I wasn't too upset when it came to a halt 9.9 miles in because well, let's face it, shit happens.


That looks like fun! I like these maps with no detailed climb data - less intimidating!

This Saturday we will be reattempting the ride and hopefully by Saturday afternoon I can say I actually completed it.
While it's not the hilliest ride we've done, it will be the longest. Usually I plan the rides because I am very much the planner of the relationship. I need things mapped out and decided weeks in advance and I'm really working on going with the flow but it's hard work.

Last week I gave my boyfriend the task of mapping the ride because I was purposely planning a ride that avoided any major hills. You see, I hate hills. Sure hate is such a strong word, but yeah, I totally despise them. I thought that maybe if I didn't know the route in advance I wouldn't be able to spend the week analyzing the route and freaking myself out.

A few weeks ago I had planned a 47 mile HILLY route and then freaked out about it all week. By the time we got the the one very large climb I may have had a bit of a freak out moment on it. Totally normal...totally. I know that actually having longer climbs on rides is beneficial to me because it makes me a overall stronger rider but in the moment I get in my own head and proceed to freak myself out. Usually I am the person talking to herself out loud that she can totally do this.

Of course the morning of the failed ride last week I looked at the route so we would both know the turns and then I was able to map it out bright and early Monday morning at work. I'm pretty sure mapping it out was completely against the point but it's too late for that so here's the climb data.




This looks like fun...right?



So if you use Map My Ride you know that they categorize the bigger climbs using some rating scale that takes into consideration the length, grade, and gain (I think - don't quote me on that one). That middle highlighted climb looks like the most fun (complete lie) and basically my goal is to not cry.

I'm a bit bummed that it will be warmer than last week but I am hoping to be done before it gets too hot outside.

I did get a new Nuun flavor (Lemon Tea - Eastern Mountain Sports seems to have limited flavors...i.e.one) to bring along so that should be interesting...I usually bring a Gatorade along with my camelback since I have yet to figure out how to drink from my water bottle without tipping over on my bike or stopping. This week we are trying alternating Powerade/Nuun and of course water in hopes that I can find something that keeps me going without feeling nauseous which happened on our last ride.

In other news it took me one email and about 16 hours to raise all the money I needed for the Bike MS century ride in July (GOAL RIDE!) which is one less thing I need to stress out about. I needed to raise a minimum of $250 to ride, and hopefully in the upcoming month I can continue to raise additional money for a great cause!

So tell me - What are your plans for the weekend? What do you fuel your long workouts with?