Learning to Suffer

Further to my last post about autumn training sessions, the Hastings Hilly Hundred was everything it was hailed as, possibly more. What was it hailed as? Why, it was hailed as the 'toughest century ride in Ontario'. No arguments here. Over 120 climbs, some of them crazy long, and just over 100 miles of riding. Ouch.

Although any remnants of ridey goodness gleaned from saturday's festivities will be long out of my legs by the time IMLP rolls around, one thing one can always take away from a hard ride like the HHH is the ability to suffer and keep going. And yes, there was some suffering. Nothing of the show-stopping variety, but suffering nonetheless.

A positive sign: my legs held up fine, and no trace of soreness either yesterday or today. That means either that my skinny pins are stronger than they look or that my climbing technique is good. Either way, that's a good thing. On the other hand, my lower back is kinda stiff today, so that tells me I need to do more work there.

Side note - my bike seemed to attract the attention of a couple of the local old boys who were helping out with the race. Never mind that there were bikes there that easily cost twice what mine did, the Cervelo got the looks. Not bad for a steel bike, but then again it is a Very Sexy Machine.