The Dirty Kanza 200 Chronicles; Big Rides

Last weekend I did the CIRREM event, which you can read about here. As I mentioned last week, I missed my time goal, but only by 12 minutes, and that easily could have been made up with a few less stops for dinking around with my shoes and the dropped chain. But, be that as it may, I did ride well, and recovery was great. I was feeling fine again by Monday.

I did ride Monday, (commute to work and back), but Tuesday and Wednesday I got snookered out of riding since I had to be with my kids for their conference days off. I did get in a good little hike with them on Tuesday, so that was great.

The rest of the week was standard commuting fare, with the longer route being thrown in a few times for good measure. Saturday was a good day. I got in 3 1/3rd hours, 12 miles of which were straight into a 20mph headwind. This was on the BMC single speed. The fatter GEAX tires are working out great so far. All in all, I felt pretty good at the end of the ride and I could have gone farther given more time, but again, it was sub 30F, and with the wind, my feet were pretty cold by the end of the ride.

<===At the checkpoint last weekend at CIRREM. (image credit Kent Carlson)

Nutrition: I have been demoing some Clif Bar product lately, and it has been working out really well. The Clif Shot mix, for my water, has electrolytes and some carbs. The gels are pretty decent, and they have caffeine. Plus the usual Clif Bars and what not. I also have tried the Clif Protein Bloks for post ride and I have Shot Bloks, which are awesome, but it isn't near warm enough for that as yet. So far, so good.

I'm sure that on longer rides of over three hours I'll have to mix in some "real" foods, but as of now I am pretty pleased with how the Clif product and my body are getting along.

Let's see, in other DK 200 related news I am still making good progress on the diet. Some slight weight loss has been noticed, so that's good. The shoulder I crashed on several times last year, and that has been a huge pain, (literally and figuratively), all winter made a huge leap of improvement after CIRREM. I narrowed down the reasons to the increased blood flow due to extended exercise, but most importantly, the way I was rowing on the bars over climbs seems to be the ticket to making the shoulder stronger. I am continuing using the bike in that way when I ride and so far, it seems to be working.

Until next time......