Yesterday Jill (my cycling partner) and I rode Millcreek and Emigration canyons. We start in Draper so round trip was just over 77 miles. Millcreek was a hard climb but after last weekend’s climb it was easily do-able. Emigration on the other hand was easy. I admit that I was getting tired but when I found out that we were almost at the summit I was kinda disappointed; I thought we had a good 5-10 miles more to go. I had stopped a bit earlier to eat something (we were around 5 hours into the ride and I needed *something* to eat). Had I known how close we were I never would have.
I rode my touring bike with gear so I was pushing 45+ lbs. I was able to do the entire ride without ever using my small chain ring, one of my goals. I determined earlier that if I was able to do both of those canyons without using that chain ring then I was in good enough shape to use my racing bike up the canyons. Goal reached!
And with that our plan for next week is to start at the official “I Think I Canyons” start location instead of Draper and ride at least Little Cottonwood and Big Cottonwood canyons. Perhaps we’ll do Millcreek as well. The following week we’ll do 3 or 4 canyons and keep going from there. Our cycling goal at the moment is to do the I Think I Canyons ride on July 31st which is all 4 of those in a century ride. I’ve no doubts Jill can do it easily but I still have a lot of training to do. I should be able to get another 100 base miles on the trainer before our next ride and with the lighter bike I expect I can do both canyons (which we’ve done on separate rides) in the same ride.
I still need to do a lot of work on my during-the-ride and recovery nutrition, and a friend was giving me some recommendations late last week. I’m going to follow up on those and see if I can keep from being famished by the end of a ride. I need to be able to go longer than 7-8 hours and have energy at the end.
Filed under: Bicycling
