Two out of three ain't bad

Decided to do three Whiting laps after work yesterday. I figured two wasn't enough and I didn't feel like doing Whiting-Luge, so I settled on three Whiting laps. Of course since I'm all about beating personal bests, I set a goal to beat my best time of 30 minutes.

Well I failed.

At least two of the three laps succeeded in meeting my goal of 10mph. The third lap was 9.9mph, but I'm not that upset about it because I purposely tried to slow down on the last lap. I was tired and sore and figured I needed to just take it easy.

List of possible reasons that I was slow (32 minutes) for my first two laps:

a. Seat was too low
b. Too tired from first lap
c. Chicken burrito at lunch that set off an atomic bomb in my guts
d. Hadn't recovered from Saturday
e. Bike suspension is off
f. I just plain suck

I suppose everyone has "off" days. All three laps felt less than stellar. I kept trying to push but my body wasn't having it. My legs just weren't there and I couldn't coax them into performing. Oh well.

Other notes:

- I passed a hiker guy and his super cute girlfriend three times - once on each lap. Man she was really, really cute

- Some older lady (that was also fairly cute as it turns out) got stuck on the rock obstacle at the start of Borrego and was impressed when I rode it. She walked.

- I got passed only once by the guy that works on my bike at Rock and Road. He was riding a singlespeed. Bleh.

- My bike felt pretty skiddish. Some of the downhill sections felt pretty bad. The section from Four Corners is super rutted and the ruts are spaced just wide enough to make your tires kick like a jackhammer.

- Middle ring, one gear before granny in the back is causing my chain to fall off. Stupid.


I'm still reading the Lance Armstrong book and figured I'd share some fascinating stuff that I came across.

Apparently some cyclists take a drug called EPO to get an edge in races. Well I guess EPO can lower your heart rate to dangerous levels and in one year 7 pro and amateur racers died as a result of taking EPO. They had heart attacks.

The book said that some racers that take EPO set their alarm clocks for the middle of the night so they can wake up and exercise vigorously so that their heart rate doesn't dip too much. Keeps them from DYING IN THEIR SLEEP.

How crazy is that?!