It’s Saturday and that means that it was time to push my limits as far as distance goes. I felt like it was time to take on the full Nice N’ Easy route again. Well, it wasn’t quite the full route, because we took a turn down this side road and went a while and then stopped overlooking the lake, and then turned around and continued on that main road again. I forgot exactly where that side road was though. But that part of the ride was fairly flat and easy, so I just added on some extra loops at the end.
So anyways, after watching my TiVo’d version of Stage 13 of the Tour (Vinokourov is my hero, btw) and having a wonderful homemade Thai dinner, I headed out. Earlier today, I had replaced my suspension seatpost with just a regular one. After adjusting it to just the right height, I was in Heaven. Everyone said to swap out the suspension seat post asap, and they were right. Anyways, I did most of the route as I could remember it, and then I went down a very long steep descent. And we all know what that means; I had a long steep ascent coming up. Soon enough, there it was, the hill that had completely destroyed me a short two weeks ago. As the hill steepened, I switched to lower and lower gears until I was in the lowest possible gear that I could be. I powered up a little bit of the hill, stopped and rested for about 2 min, and then hopped back on and slowly crawled up the rest. It is important to note here that I didn’t walk up the hill this time. I was very proud of myself for this. When I got to the top, I just kept on going; I didn’t stop for 5 minutes like I did last time either. About 20 minutes after the climb was behind me, I pulled off the road and rested for about 10 minutes. I didn’t need to stop, but I made myself stop just because I hadn’t stopped really at all, except real quick to catch my breath. This was about 15 miles into the ride, and that’s where I usually try to take a break and give my legs a rest.
The rest of the ride after I stopped for the rest was actually really strange. I was experimenting with how I actually pedal and found a neat way that seemed to take much less energy. Since I just have platforms, I usually do what I’m assuming everyone else does, I push down on the pedals starting at the top and ending at the bottom. Not too complicated. Try this sometime though, if you don’t already do it: when the pedal is coming back up, instead of just leaving your foot there and not really think about it, try to lift it up. Not enough to make it come off the pedal, but enough so there is very little pressure left on the pedal. From 15 miles until the end of my ride (and I only stopped because it got dark) at 23 miles, I felt more and more rested as the time went on. It was really strange. I’m going to try this technique whenever I ride now and see what kind of results I get.
This ride also officially put me over the 100 mile mark for the week. It was the first time ever, actually. I’m pretty excited about that as well. My next weekly goal is 150 miles, and hopefully I can do that in a couple weeks. 
