February 5, 2026

This was definitely one of my most enjoyable rides to date. 40 miles during a gorgeously sunny was wonderful. I did end up on the side of the highway, which was a tad scary, but fortunately it was only a handful of miles until I was back on country roads.

I took yesterday off because my plantar fasciitis flared up (thank you, hike-a-biking yesterday in my vans) but today it felt much better. Not quite 100%, but enough to do a long ride.

I went out on the flat country roads, hoping to just crank through some time at a lower heartrate, and the route did not disappoint. I was halfway to Wyoming before I even thought about how I was going to get back. Now I really want to plan a route that gets me to Wyoming. I’m not sure that will be possible while staying on country roads.

I’m starting to think more about watts and speed, since my 40 mile ride took almost 2.5 hours. I averaged almost 18 mph, which while being fast, is a far cry from the 25 mph I’m hoping to do on my Ironman. I tried tucking into an aero position for parts of it which helped, but I feel like two things are slowing me down a lot.

First, at 20 mph I am full-on battling the air resistance. Even well under the goal pace, wind is my biggest hurdle and largest slowing factor.

Secondly, I am already hitting a decent cadence on my highest gear. Much faster and my feet won’t be able to keep up. I find that I start spinning out on downhills right around 25 mph.

The first problem will require optimizations to my form, gear, and other aero things. I’m not too worried about it now, because while in training, watts are watts. I will practice with better form and better gear because that will help, but I’m not going to grind out aero rides or anything, just work on getting used to the tucked position.

The second, and correct me if I’m wrong any who may know better, seems to be more of a hardware issue. Eventually, I will be strong enough to push my fastest gear at 100 rpm even on flats. While that’s a good sign for my strength, it means I’ll need to do much more hill training. I believe bikes that are designed for these faster speeds will have better gear ratios to make my fastest gears be more usable at high speeds in the 25-30 mph range. That factor alone may help dictate when I’m ready to upgrade. I was hoping to wait until a few weeks before my first race, but if my training keeps progressing well I may need an upgrade sooner.

On the other hand, I still have yet to climb anything harder than a cat 4 climb, so there is definitely room to improve on my hill training, and afterall, watts are watts. I’m looking forward to doing Rist Canyon for the first time soon. Maybe as soon as early next week.

I have a brick on Saturday, and a scheduled off day tomorrow. I may do a short run just to keep my running muscles loose. We’ll see.

Until then,

Ben