Riding Between the Rains

I got a nice ride in today after the morning showers cleared.  I spent about 30 minutes in a light mist and was in the clear for the next two and half hours.  I didn't need any rain gear excepting the Honjo fenders on Estelle. 

This season I'm following a little more structured riding plan than I did last year.  The next four weeks or so are being ridden at recovery and endurance pace.  For me, that means not exceeding 151 BPM on the Polar.  I've always found it more difficult to ride slow than fast.  Over reaching is the easiest thing in the world to do.  Dosing my rides at a sustainable easy level is a challenge for me.  So far, so good.  My first easy ride I had an average HR of 136, the next ride average HR of 133, and today average HR was 130.  Riding at these kind of effort levels feels easy and should be easily sustainable for a very long time.

Next weekend is the inaugural Orange County 200k.  I think that I'll go ahead and ride it; it'll be the  easiest flattest 200k I can imagine without having to drive someplace.  My goal will be to ride it at my endurance pace HR of 151 or less.

Rain Gear Sucks

I just got the fenders mounted on Estelle yesterday so what better thing to do than go for a rain ride.  30 miles ride in the rain in the mid-50s was just fine.  The fenders don't rattle but the front rubs the tire if I climb out of the saddle.  That'll give me something to do.

I could have handled another hour or two before it would have been too cold and wet without any rain gear.  I was trying out my Seal Skin socks.  Earlier this year I used them on the San Diego Randonneurs 400k.  That 400 involved a good twelve hours of riding in the rain.  Strangely enough, I don't remember how well they worked.  Today they filled with water. I guess I need to seal that top off when I'm using them.

I did roll out this afternoon with the full rain gear on.  Naturally it stopped raining immediately.  Before I completely overheated I stripped all the gear off and stuffed it in my jersey pockets.