Week 34 - Hydra cross

Started the day showing my daughter Florence some of the beautiful roads in Conway on the bike. We rode to the Bartwell's Ferry Bridge. It had just been closed for car traffic. Bikes were allowed to pass.

When we returned, it was Florence's first ride in 2 years; I had a cappuccino and then went for a 21-mile endurance pace ride. I kept the wattage between 150 and 200 watts for most of the ride. Later that day, Paula and I went and played some pickleball.

Tuesday was intervals day, so I did my regular Tabata training after my leg strengthening workout.

On Wednesday, I went to the NCC CX training session. I had installed, new for me, inserts in the cross tires. Unfortunately, the training had difficulty pumping the tires as the valve core came loose and leaked air. My electric bike pump, which needs to be screwed on, made the valve loose when unscrewing it. Fortunately, David had a regular pump that I could use to bring the tires up to pressure.

Thursday, took the day off, but on Friday, Florence, Seppi, and I went for a bike ride to West Whately. Seppi had just arrived 2 days before from Austria. He rode my Seven Evergreen, and Florence rode my MudHoney. I ride the Fat bike.

I did some openers for the next day's race in Holyoke, Hydracross on Saturday. A loop around Roaring Brook.

I arrived early, 8am, at Holyoke to preride the Hydracross course. I really liked the course as I had a bunch of sweepy turns. There were 3 hard power sections. These made the course very challenging.

After a not-so-good start, I got thrown off balance, resulting in my feet not clipping in time, and I had to work my way back. I then tried to stay with a chase group but blew up in the 3rd lap. I had to let them go and recover. Couldn't believe there were 5 laps to go, and then I slowly started to gain speed again. In the end, I finished 14, while placed 12th. So disappointing. Definitely missed the form this week.