Afternoon Ride - Xert

Zwift - Tempus Fugit in Watopia

Zwift - TEST LONG & SHORT on Tempus Fugit in Watopia - Xert

Zwift - pushing hard on Tempus Fugit in Watopia

24 Hour Charity Ride: 

Well... that could have gone better. Much better. But, the saying "Lessons learned in pain are lessons not soon forgotten" is rather appropriate. So, what went wrong?  Let me count the ways....

I started the ride like any normal training ride... same kit, same bike, pretty much same everything. I've done plenty of "short" 4-6 hour rides with this setup and didn't think much of it.  Unfortunately, a lot of the gear I train in is shot and needs to be replaced. That became abundantly clear as the day went on. 

A handful of hours into the ride, I noticed something didn't quite feel right and I discovered that the gel in my riding shorts had actually come loose and one of the pads was not under my sit-bone where it was supposed to be. I took a quick break and swapped shorts to a pair that had not yet failed in this manner.  While the replacement shorts were much better, they too are still old and the foam portion of the shorts is all of worthless at this point and the gel pads are starting to get stiff and hard. This went double for the throw away $10 bike seat that I use. I normally replace the seat every 3 months (which at $10 is a trivial thing to do), but I hadn't changed the seat  since October... so it was long overdue.  

By 10 hours into the ride, my sit-bones were absolutely killing me and I needed to do something about it. After much contemplation, after 13 hours in the saddle, I took a long break where I switched everything out to my racing setup. I took a quick shower, swapped to my racing kit, and transferred my power meter over to my TT bike.  What a world of difference that made!  However... that all brought on a new kind of pain with it.

The TT bike has a much more aggressive fit than my road bike. And, as luck would have it, I've not been stretching much to maintain my flexibility over the past several months. This caused me to round my back quite a bit as I road. I was fine for the few few hours like this, pushing power back up to where I was at the beginning of the ride. But, my riding posture would soon be my undoing. 

Enter... lower back pain. 

I joke with Billy that he has youthful vigor on his side and I have suborn mule no my side. But, there's a fine line between "stubborn" and "stupid". As the hours went on, I took a few pain pills to help, which ultimately didn't help at all. Just sitting on the bike was a chore. I kept dropping power in hopes that it would lessen the pain. 

With 21 hours finished, I went upstairs to lay down on the floor for a bit to stretch my back and give it a rest. Unfortunately, I fell asleep there. 45 minutes later I woke up so incredibly stiff. I hopped back on the bike again to finish out the last few hours of the ride that remained, but I was immediately struck with shooting pain in my lower back again. I may be suborn, but I'm not stupid. Continuing like this I felt was going to be a recipe for injury followed up by a long recovery. So, I ended the ride.

So, what lessons were learned?  1) Make sure you use the appropriate gear for your big events. 2) Don't take bike fit and flexibility for granted.  

While I'm very disappointed in my performance on this ride, both of these are easy to fix over the next month before the 72 hour event. While it sucks to experience failure, I'm glad I had this failure now on this ride rather than during the 72 hour event.

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Craig Haydock

JJ Safe House Ride (DNF) - Zwift

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Afternoon Ride - Xert

Zwift - Tempus Fugit in Watopia

Zwift - Tempus Fugit in Watopia

Zwift - TEST LONG & SHORT on Tempus Fugit in Watopia - Xert

Zwift - pushing hard on Tempus Fugit in Watopia

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