For the past couple of weeks I've wanted to do a 150 mile training ride... My planned route was to go around O'ahu via Makapu'u, the North Shore, and Waipahu, then over Pali, and back to Honolulu via Makapu'u. I finally did that ride today, although it was only 140 miles.

I woke up at 545am, had a glass of fruit juice, a yogurt, then rode over to triangle park to meet David Lum. Waited there for 15mins until he arrived. Rode from there with David and Barry out to Hanauma Bay where we met Tony Lang, then had a nice paceline for the first 2hrs of the ride. It rained a lot and the view up to the north shore didn't look too much better. David and Tony decided to flip it and head back for home, down to a mix of weather and potential ride around the north shore. As it turned out, after Kahana Valley, it was dry and sunny!

I continued on solo, not stopping again until Haleiwa. Up until that point I had an average speed of 22mph and 250w. By the top of Pineapple Hill my speed had dropped to 20.1. Losing 1mph from average speed going up that drag seems to be the norm.

At Haleiwa I had the bright idea to eat something solid, and that need was met with an Almond Snickers. I got to enjoy that Snickers for about 10mins before barfing it over my arm while riding up Pineapple Hill. Nice. Of course, my water bottles only had Gatorade and I didn't want to wash the barf off with that. Yuck.

From Dole Plantation I rode down Kunia Rd. to Waipahu, and passed another cyclist that was on the road. After a few mins the guy was glued to my back wheel! Nice, no "Hi, how's it going, where you heading?", "Mind if I join you". It turned into a bit of an unofficial ra... Great. Dude. I've got 95 miles in the bag and another 45 to go, back off. Anyway, I couldn't resist so just kept nailing out the watts while keeping a nice relaxed position on the bike. Eventually while taking my Waipahu-bike-path-avoiding-route (the Freeway) at 37mph, the guy passes me, only for me to catch him again before Waimalu. I didn't see him again after that… It was fun while it lasted.

From Waimalu, I rode along Nimitz to downtown, and although it was tempting to call it good at 110 miles and aim for home, I turned left and header over Pali. I dropped anchor about half way up old Pali Rd. where it was raining heavily. I could barely turn my legs, but after taking a short break, continued over the Pali with all the watts I could scrape together. At Olomana I was starting to get hypoglycemic, couldn't focus, eyes closing, and constant thoughts of FOOD. Made it to 7-11 in Waimanalo where I just about fell off my bike. Inhaled an apple pie, bag of chips, and downed a bottle of coke. That batch of sugar woke me up a bit and the rest of the ride home wasn't so bad. It wasn't pretty, but I made it!

Next time I think I need to take more gels / shot blocks with me to keep the furnace burning. I also need to find 10 more miles so that I can hit my target of 150.

Today's 140 mile ride resulted in a TSS score of 354.6! That puts my current CTL up to 74 (72.1 on Monday).

Still not super high, but factoring in rest weeks, I'm building CTL at a ramp rate of about 8+ pts per week.

12 weeks into my off-season training and I've not been sick once! Only one flat tire in a few thousand miles too! That's a good stint of good luck.