7/27- Corizozo to Socorro

Today I did not intend on going hard, but once I got started, I found myself pounding the pedals. Maybe it was the excitement of having internet this morning and being able to talk to Robert in China, maybe it was being inspired by Carlos Sastre’s impressive time trial yesterday to hold onto the maillot jaune, maybe it was my frustration with Kyle R.’s punishment, but I hit the first climb flying. Today’s ride featured two large climbs, the first one lasting 6 miles, and the second one lasting 11 miles and climbing over 3,000 feet. The beginning of the day continued to feature the rain and fog that had started since yesterday. The surrounding scenery (what could be seen in this dense fog), featured broken up black igneous rock spread over this fertile volcanic countryside. As much as pictures would be completely unable to describe the surrealness and beauty of this scenery, I even did stop to take a few pictures.

As much time I had spent to take photos and chat with a few riders, I enjoyed the solitude of riding alone in this beautiful scenery as I climbed at my own pace. Unlike yesterday, there was no tailwind to be found, and we would be fighting a familiar friend all day. I kept at a constant pace up the second mountain when I spotted a second rider in the distance, who could have been none other than Jose.

I know he saw me as well, as he was carefully monitoring my progress as I inched my way closer to his position. (I might take this time to say that while no official race had been declared, I have a pretty good idea of when Jose is slow pedaling, or when he was taking a day off, and he was doing neither). (I’ll also put in the disclaimer right now that I still know Jose to be a stronger rider than me in pretty much every facet of cycling, which only shows me how much I have to improve if I want to rock out Men’s Category B next year). With about 5 m separating us, and realizing he was caught, he pulled off and gruffly announced that I should ride ahead as he wanted to ride alone. That was a good thing, because that made two of us.

Pedalling ahead, I continued to put on distance, finally reaching the summit of the second climb and began the long 15 mile descent to lunch (the rest of the day was all one long downhill). I’ve always prided myself on my ability to lay down the hammer on slight downhills, which was a skill that was practiced at the RPM computrainer classes we did at Breakaway and displayed at the Penn State Road Race this year.

I just missed averaging 20 mph over 40 miles, reaching the lunch truck in 2 hours and 7 minutes. It would be 29 minutes before Jose would roll by and about 110 minutes before the next rider would come through.

I know this sounds foolish when I’ve biked 5 hrs and averaging about 80 miles every day for the past 7 weeks, but I’ve had a legitimate fear of not knowing how much I’ve improved these past weeks, a very similar fear I had before the Rutgers Season Opener this year. Unlike the school year where I had a consistent training plan that had me work on different skills and relied on periodization, my “training” on this trip has been limited to the Eddy Merck training program of “ride lots”. I’ve tried to use this trip as more than a giant training trip, especially after learning my lesson after riding hard every day to Pittsburgh. I’ve stuck to my plan of talking to other riders and being social, while seeing everything our route has to offer and taking breaks to explore things and take photos.

After taking a 3 hour lunch break and updating my journal and playing lots of Queen, I took the rest of the day easy, and spent alot of it taking photos of other riders. A few shots are below:

Speaking of today’s route, we were within 12 miles of the first nuclear bomb tests that were conducted in the deserts. I know there is nothing out here, and the tests were held in the desert further south, but the landscape was truly breathtaking and it seems like a shame to pick this place.