This was supposed to be the hardest week before a recovery week. However my son's wedding on Saturday required to make some changes to the regular schedule. We left for LA on Friday morning and will be returning in the recovery week on Thursday. Hopefully will get in the flow of things again after that.
Tuesday went to the NCC Hill time trial. This was going to be a mass start at 6pm. Unfortunately I was distracted with some work and left late. The start was in East Leverett and would take an hour to ride there. By the time I got there the group must have just left as I was there just after 6. The course was 4.26 mile and went up towards Shutesbury.
Since I was late did not have a chance to look at the photos of the exact start and finish locations. Although I did remember the start at the stop sign in East Leverett. From there the route started steep for the first few hunderd meters and I definitely started a bit too fast. With the hot and humid weather the first section that went along a brook was a relieve, as it had a nice cooling effect. But after a mile the route and the brook parted ways and things definitely got hotter, which I noticed in my power output.
After a while I saw a rider in the distance and used it as a target, trying to keep a steady power output. I was not able to catch the rider ahead of me before the finish. At the finish the group that had started earlier had stopped in front of the church, and when I arrived headed into the entrance of the church towards the group. Which was a mistake. The whole group pointed out to me I had to keep going another 15 meters. Oh well. As a result I had hit the lap button too soon and again could not give David my finish time and had to email him later from home. I finished the route in 18:32, definitely slower than other riders that were in the group start.
After the race David and I rode back towards Sunderland and chatted about our travel plans we found out we were both traveling to a wedding, for me my son and for David his daughter.
That day the sky had been pretty hazy with smoke from the West coast forest fires. The sun was a big orange in the sky all day. When I crossed the bridge at Sunderland across the Connecticut it was hovering over Sugarloaf mountain. And when I rode past the entrance, I thought the sun would make a great backdrop for a mountain view over the valley. At that moment I decided to climb up mt Sugarloaf. The climb is not that long but pretty steep the views are stunning though overlooking the Connecticut river.
After a steep descend rode back to Conway, which made it a nice 40 mile loop. and I was home at around 8pm.
Wednesday morning went for my weekly 5k run, my legs were pretty tired from the race the day before. So I started pretty easy and kept nice pace, nothing the crazy.
Since this was the last day before we were going to leave to Arlington for our trip I had asked John if he was interested in a ride after work. We then went for a 17 mile loop with some interesting climbs: Pine Hill, Thompson and Main Poland. I started pretty tired but fortunately my legs started to feel better and in the end was a good ride.
The rest of the week we did a hike in Arlington on Thursday around Mystic lake. Coincidentally we ran into Will who was doing some intervals along the mystic river.
We flew into LA on Friday. That was a long tiring day with an early 4am start, and a 6hr plane trip. Followed by a long hike with our luggage to the car rental place. Then a drive on the LA highways to our airbnb in Fullerton.
On Saturday the day of the wedding we walked to center of town to get some breakfast. Talking about working out at the wedding dinner and party there was a lot of dancing. Don't know about dancing TSS, but we most have a record.
Sunday we drove the the town of San Celemente and hiked along the beaches. All in all a good week.
