We took off through nachshon junction this morning and went over to the Lackhish area, around through a big climb on a tiny hidden road, and then back through nachshon towards tel aviv. The total was around 160 kilometres of fighting to not get dropped from the pack. We were split into two groups today to address the differences in level and degree of ride difficulty. I was unceremoniously tossed into the elite group where I felt like a guppy surrounded by octane fueled barracudas.
As we started the ride, one of the guys asks me how my climbing is, and of course I gushed about how much I love to climb but am not the quickest descender. Well, I almost ate my words.I do love to climb and the longer and harder, the better for me. But, when I have to keep up with a bunch of peak fitness "in season" cyclists on those do or die climbs, I'm working so hard that I have to suppress the urge to throw up all over my bike half way through the ride. Today was hell for me. I loved it but it was pure hell trying to keep the take no prisoners pace.
This group is a big family and I completely feel the love while I'm riding.
I have the tendency to be slightly self destructive, and while I'm capable of training high volumes, I tend to let myself end up in a performance hole by not addressing key sports nutrition, supplement, and recovery principles. It's easier to be much lighter when you eschew training hydration and fueling and post training recovery but when you do this you entirely lose the quality of the effort. I used to think that you could do this and as long as you conducted yourself appropriately the night before and the day of a race, a performance would go as planned. When you're 18 and a bit of a kamikaze on the race course, your body can handle that to some extent. You won't reach a peak but your body will handle it.
When you're older, glycogen stores get depleted very quickly as your muscles turn into a furnace and the outcome can be messy. I don't know how many training sessions I've done where I've gone so deep into glycogen depletion that I can't even lift myself out of the pool, feel like I'm going to pass out with each breath, and/or lose the ability to support myself on my own two legs. I'm not so into that anymore.
The family/team atmosphere helps too because the guys are always reminding me to drink or use gels or whatever so that I have the energy to keep the effort level high. The result is my performance improves but I'm not any lighter. I can address that later.
There is one women though who drives me bonkers. She's a strong cyclist on the flats and on the descents but can't climb for beans. She falls off the pack climbing and I move to the front or at least try to. Then when we finally hit a long descent she comes flying by my place in the pack and uses her massive ass to move in the pack ahead of me. I have to let her in or get knocked over. I'm not one to criticize other womens bodies, when I spend enough time criticizing my own, but she totally uses her humongous ass and it's bizarre centre of gravity to shoot down the descents and then when she moves back into the pack ahead of me, two things happen; I have to work like hell to find a wheel and hang on again on the descents which are hard for me as my bike is very light, and then I just have to pass her again on the next climb. It's really irritating and tests my patience.
Around Lackhish we started passing tractors travelling in the opposite direction. It was curious because the first one had a women wearing a full black chador with just slits for the eyes, and then all the next ones had women driving wearing various forms of full coverings including what appeared to be lumber jackets. I've never seen religious muslim women driving tractors before. I guess in Israel you can really see all walks of life doing tasks that our internal stereotypes refuse to allow us to connect with them. A bike can be such an amazing viewfinder into our israeli shakshuka culture.
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