2008-05-30

Ride Report: Farewell to Prospect Park

I went for a ride on Friday.

Speed: 20.6 MPH (I was averaging 21.5 for much of it.)
Distance: 78 miles.
Time: about 3h38m.
Average HR: 140 BPM.

Since I was moving out of my apartment in Brooklyn, I did a self-motivated "Farewell to Prospect Park" ride. The majority of my riding this year has been either time indoors on the rollers, or riding laps around Prospect Park, generally going faster than everyone else.

On Friday, I was aiming to do a Prospect Park Century, which is 29 laps of the 3.38 mile loop. The circuit includes about 200 feet of elevation gain in the form of one 4% grade and a few rollers in the road. It's a good test of character, since the elevation changes and the constantly changing wind direction cancel. It was also a good dress rehearsal of the equipment I'm planning to use most days of the trip.

My century attempt ended early, at mile 78, with me bonking. This is probably the hardest ride of this length that I've ever done, and it was warmer than it's been all year. Even though I was certainly eating and hydrating plenty, I should have had a larger breakfast, started drinking earlier, and replaced the Perpetuem (a heavy energy drink for ultramarathon distances) with Gu2O or Gatorade (a lighter sports drink for high intensity work.)