And then the ride home 8/19

Part 2 August 19, 2008
So I am writing this a month later. Its September 23, and I haven’t ridden a day since I made the above post. I had a long day in the office, but was reasonably recovered by the end of the day. Brian and I were going to ride home from the office, so we got ourselves out the door at 5. Traffic is normally heavy at 5 on Market Street. However, I was not prepared for what that’d mean for riding.
Because of the traffic, I ended up going from dead stops to full speed in a half a block or less only to have to stop again. This is not a good scenario for riding, and I used a lot of energy in the first 5 miles. Once I got past 24, MT Zion Road, it was ok.
Brian and I cruised through to Hellam, and I opted to keep riding. As I rolled along down to the river, I started to regret not taking a five or ten minute break at Brian’s. Coming up out of Columbia, I started to get the feeling my legs were going to cramp. In a pre-emptive measure, I stopped at a convenience store and got a Gatorade. I downed a lot of it before dumping the rest in to my water bottle. Getting back on the road, I was feeling pretty beat.
I made my way along to Rohertown Road, and made a left. I had to put it in cruise mode going down the hill, and I really struggled going up the other side. Across Route 30 and to the next traffic light, my legs started to cramp at the quad muscles. This is a problem, because every time I tried to power through , my thigh would cramp. I coasted down the hill, barely adding anything to the rolling. Going up the small hills, I struggled to keep the momentum going. I essentially limped home the last 10 miles.
Upon arriving home, I was exhausted. MB and I decided it would be best if I skipped the riding the next day. I have been struggling with how to proceed since then. I have been getting myself to the gym and working hard at building the endurance and speed, mostly by running. Lifting doesn’t seem to help the cause much, but I haven’t lifted much either.
I think that given the conditions of that day (hot riding home, 90 + degrees) combined with not really being able to recover in 8 hours, means that I’ll need to do things differently. I also think that the first part of the ride down Market street was a problem. Too much start and stop and too fast. That burned up my energy.