Me ready to roll and excited!
I was not especially looking orward to the ride this morning. I knew it would be long and hilly and frankly I thought I would be screwed after pushing hard at the brick session yesterday and really beating up my legs on the hills.
The deserted streets of North Sydney at 5.45am on a Sunday
But I was incredibly surprised at how the day turned out. We met up at Le Spit Cyclery at 6am (Brad, Andrew, Dan, James & Dave) and cruised over the Spit into Manly, meeting up with Mick and Amy at Bike Addiction at 6.20.
Ready to start the ride proper from Bike Addiction
Then the prelude was over and it was time to start the real ride - with a hill of course - straight up Allambie Road. Not the ideal warm up, but I handled it a lot better than last time. From there it was Forestway, Mona Vale Road through St Ives to Bobbin Head, down and up the hill on the other side. First big climb.
View from Bobbin Head
Happy to be at the bottom of that fun Bobbin Head descent
Ready to head back up the other side
Then we cruised down the Galston Gorge, beautiful bushland and incredibly tight switchbacks down and down and down... and of course back up and up and up the other side. 2nd climb.
Across to Bewrowra waters from there and over on the small open deck ferry at about the 65km mark.
The ferry trip - a nice halfway break (Andrew told the ferrymaster to slow down because the 2 minute trip wasn't a long enough rest)
View from the ferry
The climb back out of Berowra
We climbed out the other side (3rd climb), back down the old Pacific Highway and then down for a repeat performance of Bobbin Head (hill #4).
Before the Bobbin Head descent Dan was not keen to go another hill. It was probably his longest ride ever and coming on the back of having been in the UK for two weeks on sad family business (the kind of thing that really takes it out of you emotionally), with no riding for the past 3 weeks at least, completely jetlagged and really not having slept properly in a week. We seemed spent, I completely know the feeling, but only ever at the very end of a ride, not with a mother of a climb followed by at least another 45km of riding to go in the hot sun... I can't believe he sucked it up and seemed to finish the rest of the ride fairly easily (maybe it didn't feel like that to him, but certainly he looked strong enough). It was an awesome display of grit and mental toughness and I was really impressed, I hope that I could do the same in a similar situation.
Refuelling at the servo in St Ives
Unusually though, today I felt better as the ride went on. Even on the last few hills (including back up Parrawi at the Spit) I was attacking and going hard and feeling great about it. I felt like I was charging the whole way through and was loving the hills, right up to coming home. I walked in the door with 142km on the clock (a new longest ride ever) and feeling a million bucks - so much so that I strapped on the runner and went out for a 15 minute hill run!
Then stretched, ate lunch and Sarah and I cruised down to Birchgrove for Dan & Mia's Retro Tennis day. I played a couple of sets and still felt strong enough to run all over the court. Damn I feel like the energizer bunny today, I don't know what's going on with that. Such a complete turnaround from Thursday and Friday. I can only assume that the rest made all the difference. Go the recovery day!
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