tic-toc tic-toc

In an attempt to recover for hard weekend rides I've been commuting at an easy pace. We've been doing the Saturday River Ride pretty much every week and then I do my long ride alone. This week's long ride was 130 miles, 75 on the road and 55 on the tt-bike...all on the Parkway. This gave me a chance to work on my nutrition strategy, my lighting for the night loop, and the specificity of the event. For this week's nutrition experiment I did the road bike portion with my Camelbak filled with water and three Elixir tabs. The Camelbak is way more comfortable on the road than on the mountain bike. I'm thinking about trying a 100 oz reservoir so I can do 10-12 hours on one refill. And, as a side benefit/discovery, there will be no more worrying about stopping for water on 100 miles tempo rides. I hopped on the tt-bke and was able to cruise comfortably at 20 mph for about three hours. The lights worked perfectly and with two complete sets I am good to go there. And of course the specificity of the race requires riding all day on the road bike then jumping on the tt-bike and riding 14 hours through the night. Not exactly tactical rocket science but definitely an important detail none the less. The next big ride is Mt. Diablo. I'll be doing a threshold test to see where we're at. The Chronic Training Load has stabilized in the 105-110 range and recovery is starting to be more predictable. Oh yeah, I've dropped 3-4 pounds and am back in the groove there too. Rock on!