She's Going the Distance
Last Saturday I did the rescheduled April Fools Ride in Milledgeville. Normally, this ride is held the Saturday closest to April 1. However, it was postponed this year because of COVID-19. The organizers did a great job working with pandemic requirements; it was a show-and-go start between 7:00 and 9:00 AM, and food and drinks were individually packaged at the rest stops. Also, the T-shirt was so clever!
I had planned to ride the 80-mile option, but the night before, Robert decided to come with me. He didn't want to ride quite that far, and so we did the 63-mile option. That was fine with me because I still got a 100K for the Virtual Brevet Post-Season Play. Also, it was really nice to have his company instead of riding solo.
The only downside, which was minor, was that I had to make up that mileage later in the week. I joined the Strava July Cycling Distance Challenge, which is to ride 1,250 km in July. I've only got through tomorrow, Friday, July 31, to get the total distance. After doing the 63-mile option at last Saturday's April Fools Ride, I had about 131 miles left in the July Cycling Distance Challenge.
I had already planned a 50K dirt road ride for past Sunday. So, that left me roughly 100 miles to do on Monday through Thursday this week, about 25 miles per day. (I usually take Fridays off from working out.) This certainly wasn't infeasible, but it was slightly more than I might do during a regular workweek. Dirt was definitely out for this week - the only way I could get my remaining mileage was to stick with road riding.
On Monday I did Rabbit Skip Loop. I've enjoyed this route for a number of years. As a bonus, it's exactly 50K, and so I also knocked out another 50K for Virtual Brevet Post-Season Play. Also, by doing a few extra miles on Monday, I had slightly more breathing room on mileage for the rest of the week.
(Sorry if it's confusing to switch back and forth between miles and km - that's the price we pay for being cyclists in the U.S. with its imperial unit system in a world that uses the metric system.)
I rode 22.5 miles on Tuesday and 20.2 miles yesterday. My 26.6-mile ride to Hillsboro Lake today put me over the top!
QOMs
Amid my Cycling Distance Challenge shenanigans, I became fixated on Strava segments. Not on getting QOMs per se but on getting Strava segments to work on my Wahoo. A few months ago I made a halfhearted attempt at this but set it aside. Then, in the last few weeks, I've lost a few nearby QOMs by mere seconds. Argh! If I could get Strava segments to work on my Wahoo, I could fine-tune my efforts to regain these QOMs.
As I did some Strava research, I discovered its Segment Explore feature. It turns out that there are a lot more nearby Strava segments than I realized. I've never attempted to the get the QOM on some of these segments, and a few I've never ridden at all. I ought to have the QOMs in my own backyard, not some out-of-towner. OK, I admit it - I like getting QOMs.
I knew that starring a particular segment in Strava should make it show up on my Wahoo. The problem was that my Wahoo wasn't syncing properly. In a nutshell, I finally got starred Strava segments to show up on my Wahoo by logging out and logging back into the Wahoo app on my phone.
I found a QOM on Hwy 212 that's on the inbound portion of Rabbit Skip Loop. This became my first foray into using Strava segments on my Wahoo. I felt good - actually, much better than average - on Monday's ride. I took it fairly easy early in the ride, wanting to leave plenty of energy to attack the QOM climb in the later part. Even with seemingly less effort, my speed was good. That boded well.
From the segments screen on my Wahoo, I could see the approaching start of the segment, just as the road began to climb from a creek crossing. 800-some-odd feet... 600-some-odd feet...30-some-odd feet...
Go get it!
It was 1.4 miles at a 4.4% grade. My Wahoo said the time to beat was 4:54.
Push it, push it, push it! Steady, steady, steady! Less than 5 minutes - you can do anything for 5 minutes.
I beat the time by 24 seconds. However, t turns out that 4:54 was my previous personal record (PR). I tied the existing QOM, which was 4:30. Although Strava gave me the crown, I ain't gonna be co-queens with anyone. So, I rode the segment again the next day to get the QOM outright. On Tuesday's ride I went even harder and beat Monday's time by 10 seconds. (That was painful...) Now I really feel like I got the QOM.
So, what was the deal with my Wahoo showing my PR instead of the QOM? I did some more research and learned that you can race against a specified target, your PR, or the QOM, according to that hierarchy. However, strangely, you can't select your preference ahead of time; you have to do it after the segment starts. I needed more data.
The primary goal of yesterday's ride was to see how this segment toggle feature worked. I tried a segment on which I already had the QOM. As I started the climb, I noted that the middle button at the bottom of Wahoo read VS, i.e., versus. I pushed it, and the segment goal switched from PR to QOM. That was it!
The rest of yesterday's ride included four other segments on which I wanted to get the QOM. First was a segment on Persons Street. We call this Heartbreak Hill on the Deer Dash 5K (running), but interestingly, I had never ridden it before, or not with Strava anyway. I got the QOM and discovered that I had to toggle to QOM again. Each segment defaults to PR; it doesn't remain in QOM mode even though I specified that on the previous section. That was good to know.
Next I rode out to Calvin Road. I've ridden this road a lot, but there was a QOM I had never attempted. I approached the start of the segment. As soon as the timer started, I toggled to QOM mode.
Pedal, pedal, pedal!
I punished myself for 0.3 miles at a 4.2% grade. My lungs actually hurt at one point. (That's great training.) My effort paid off; I got the QOM by 10 seconds.
Only a few miles farther was my third segment of the day. It was the hill next to the Monticello water treatment plant. My friend Angie had me by 1 second! She got it a few years ago on the BBQ Bass Ride. I figured it wouldn't be terribly difficult to improve my PR by 2 seconds to get the QOM. I underestimated how hard this segment would be.
My Wahoo was in QOM mode. I was struggling to stay even with Angie's time, let alone get ahead by even a few seconds.
Don't give up. Keep going. Keep going.
I didn't think I got it. My Wahoo said I set a PR, but it didn't indicate a QOM. I must have gone 1 second faster and tied Angie. However, when I got home and uploaded my data, I learned that I actually got the QOM by 1 second. Whoa! That was a surprise, but I'll take it. Thinking on it further, I can see why my solo effort was so hard. When Angie got the QOM during BBQ Bass a few years ago, we were riding in a hammerfest peloton.
I rode through downtown Monticello and headed south toward home. I had one last segment to tackle, Highway 11 just outside the city limits, Hugh Tucker's Hill. Even though I ride this way frequently, I don't think I had ever tried for the QOM.
One more lung buster! Follow through! I got it by 18 seconds.
I wanted to ride at least 20 miles, and so I did a short out-and-back stretch near home at a moderate pace. I was glad my hard efforts were over for the day!
Overall, that was a fun way to do intervals. Robert reminded me about Phil Gaimon. He's a pro racer who has had fun in the "Worst Retirement Ever" (seriously, it's a YouTube series) by going for some of the toughest KOMs in the country. I doubt I'll travel very far to get more QOMs, but maybe I'll design some future interval workouts around Strava segments.
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