794 km to go..

At almost 62km, yesterday's ride turned out to be a bit of a milestone of sorts. Having passed the 400k mark for 2009, I'm now a little over 1/3 of the way towards my goal of 1200 on the year. Considering I'm only 1 month into the season, and with at least 5 good months of riding left to go before the fall cold sets in around Toronto again, I'm starting to think reaching my goal of 1200 should be pretty easy. Now I don't want to jinx myself, but at my current mileage, I'm on pace to actually do between 2000 and 2400 km. For now though, I'll leave my goal at 1200k and re-calibrate when the time comes.

Anyway, yesterday was a great little ride in and of itself. It was a little cooler around the GTA again, so I went back to wearing my Under Armour long sleeve under my jersey, but I stuck with the shorts rather than full leggings. I was thinking that might have been a mistake after only a couple of kilometers, but I soon warmed up and the temperature became quite tolerable. The wind however was up again, but at least it was at my back for the first 30k.

I actually started out with the intention of doing only a 30-40k leg stretch, as I was planning on joining a group ride this morning, but once I got going I just decided to carry on. Strangely enough, I had some minor calf muscle cramps after only 15-16 kilometers, but I backed off a bit and worked those out pretty quickly. I did 20k on my trainer the night before and, being indoors, dropped a lot of sweat, so I may have been a bit low on hydration and sodium level.

The Cervelo boys just after they passed me. Great guys!

The coolest part of yesterday's ride happened just after I made the turn for home. At about the 35k mark, I was caught and passed at a red light by a guy riding a Cervelo and wearing a full Cervelo kit. I stood up on my pedals to try and latch on to his wheel, but just as I did that, I was passed on my left by another rider decked out in Cervelo gear. Before I knew it, 6 more went around me and I was on the back of a full pack of Cervelo team riders. Most if not all of them acknowledged me as they passed which I thought was neat. Even neater, or so I thought was that I managed to latch on to their wheel and stay with them for at least 5-6 km. Not bad for an old guy with only 400k on his legs for the year. I may have been able to stay with them even longer, but I was busy snapping pictures (here and here) and even trying to take a video. Anyway, once I got unhitched, they were off and out of sight in no time and once again it was just me and the headwind.

When all was said and done, I finished out at 61.8k and felt great. Much better than I did at the end of my 76k ride last weekend. Being much cooler, I didn't drop nearly as much water this week, which probably made a big difference. I also followed some online advice and tried some post-ride recovery drinks this week to rebuild my glycogen stores. Seemed to work.