Yesterday (9/26/12) was my last bike day of the year. Why not go out with a bang! I rode 103 miles by 2:20 in the afternoon. Not too bad, I would say.
The last bike day of the year called for a change in strategy. I have often felt that focusing on the number of miles ridden served as a mental block for me. The internal conversation would go something like this...I'm only at 60 miles! That means I have 40 more miles to go. Ugh.
The question became, what would happen if I didn't know how many miles I had gone? What if I just rode for the amount of time I had available and let the miles happen?
Luckily, I can change what variables my Garmin Edge 500 will display. There are actually 3 display screens and you can customize the number of items on each screen and what variables are on each screen. If you have a heart rate monitor and power meter attached to your bike, there is an almost endless number of possibilities to the data you can monitor.
On my main screen, I chose to have Ride Time, Current Speed, and % Grade. Distance wasn't even listed until the third screen, which I never looked at.
I woke early, ate breakfast and hopped on my bike. The day began with a ride up Kenowa Ave to very near the northen Kent county line. The northen county line is actually 22 mile but when I got to 21 mile, Kenowa switched from paved to a windy, uphill dirt road. I deemed 21 Mile to be good enough.
When I got home, I refilled water bottles, had an extra snack, started a load of laundry and took off. The second loop of the day was somewhat less well planned. What I mean by that is I hadn't decided where I was going to go.
There was a small mechanical issue which did infuence my decision making. The cleat on my left shoe was repeatedly coming loose and needed to be retightened. By the time I was done with my Kenowa Ave loop, I had tightened it down 3 times. Should I stop at Freewheeler or at Village Bike in Jenison?
The loop I had hypothesized took me out past Village Bike in Jenison, so I stopped there. The nice gentleman at the repair desk fiddled around with my shoe for about 5 minutes and I was set to go (for free BTW!). Big thanks to Village Bike. One of my worries was that I would be 5 miles short of 100 for the day and have some type of malfunction that would keep me from continuing.
The rest of my second loop took me out past GVSU, through Marne, down 6 mile and back home. Once I was home again, I took a look at the time. I had an asthma check up at 3:15 in the afternoon so I wanted to be done around 2:15 to give me time to eat, wash up and rest some. That left me about 45 minutes more to ride. In a uncharacteristic moment of mercy, I chose to ride up the White Pine Trail for a while and then turn around and come back. Nice and flat and easy.
Shortly before getting back home, I did check my distance and saw that I was at 102 miles. Fabulous! That makes 2 century rides for the year with one more to come at the Colorburst.
Did not knowing my distance help? It certainly seemed to. One of my co-workers is a pyschologist and she said I was keeping myself "in the moment". That sounds about right. During any given part of the ride, I was thinking more about keeping up a steady, do-able pace rather than how many miles I had left.
On October 13, I am going to ride my first 200 kilometer ride (that's about 124 miles). I know the route well. There will be no surprises there. Knowing how many miles I have ridden will not give me any valuable information. I know what I have to do and where I have to go. All I have to do now is get out and ride it.
Knowing that I have recently done a century and not been totally wiped out by it will help a lot. By the time I got home, I did feel as if I could have kept going (I was happy to be finished, I should say).
As Yogi Berra once said, "Half the game is 90% mental."
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