A short? training ride before work.....

Looking south towards Sacaton.

Well, since I haven't been riding much the last week (always seems like one thing or another has come up). I decided I should do my "long" commute before work as today is the last day for a good training ride since next week will be tapering. So with that in mind I was up at 4:10 ready to be on the road by 4:15. Except it didn't really work that way. For one thing, I had to get the water bottles ready. For another I couldn't find a thing to eat, until, having a sudden college dorm flashback brought on by desperation I put some Hersheys chocolate syrup on two pieces of bread and ate it. It actually wasn't half bad, not better than jam, but not fully bad either. After pumping up the tires and fetching the arm and leg warmers I was on the road at 4:35. I was fairly warm most of the way out of town until I started approaching Queen Creek. That is where there is a bit of a valley. The headwind wasn't helping either. I was keeping around 16 mph. I figured I would pick up speed when I turned toward Coolidge (which I did). Making my way past all the new little develo-burgs that are springing up down the hunt highway I was to Coolidge before the sunrise was over. Going from Coolidge to Chandler I was in the low 20s most of the way. It was a beautiful morning, no rain, no headwinds, just a nice pleasant morning and the legs were jazzed as I was working on drinking better. I managed to stay strong all the way in until I rolled into work a few minutes before nine. How is that for timing? 4 hours and 15 minutes of riding and 78.2 miles, not too bad for a morning commute into work.

Just before getting into work I got to ponder on the name of the team Liqui gas (cycling team in europe). Having just had some Liqui Gas of my own (glad it was toward the end of the ride) I determined it must be a non-profit comany figuring out ways to help cyclists who suffer from Liqui gas.

Well, thats it for the 600k training! We'll see how we do next Friday!