Bug Bottle

Riding this morning. It went really well. I think that sums it up nicely.

This was the first ride I have had in ages which didn't have any hill repeats in it. As soon as I read that on the program I was already excited. I respect hill repeats and know they are an import tool when it comes to cycling strength, but man it is possible to have too much of a good thing. So with the ride today, the idea of being able to just ride was certainly appealing.

The ride was fairly simple, 110km with some long intervals in it. Given I just had a flat ride on agenda I thought I might head down the freeway, which I haven't done for a while. It was super windy this morning as well and I thought the freeway would be a good way of minimising the impact of the wind. All up it worked well.

The 55km outward leg was almost entirely into the wind, but it wasn't as painful as that sounds. The pieces into the wind went well, hitting the target power levels for the intervals, but also holding back a little to save something for the trip home.

Once I turned for home though, that is when the fun really began. I had a nice healthy tail wind the whole way home and so the return 55km was just a blast. Once I got to the last interval I was still feeling pretty good so I let it go a bit in the last 20 minutes. I got home still feeling great. In fact it was the best feeling 110km I have done for a good while. The power levels and average speed were bang on. All up it was a great session to have one week out from a race.

The only downside to the session came when I found this as I refilled one of my bottles right at the end of the ride.

As far as I can tell 'this' is a dead spider, which I presume was in my bottle for the entire ride, only to be found once the bottle was empty. I am not entirely sure it is a spider (it could be a cricket) since I have to admit I didn't look that closely. Part of me wonders how on earth it got inside my bottle, but a really big part of me would prefer not to know. 

However, even spider flavoured water isn't enough to detract from what was a really great session.

I am just not going to think too hard about how many spider legs I may have swallowed.