Stage 5 – Extra Shot

  • Duration: 0:22:24
  • Power: 380 watts
  • Average Cadence: 87
  • TSS: 36.5
  • Ride %: 100
  • Start line:  9:06 pm on Tuesday, January 29 (Because it’s Wednesday somewhere)

And… The Wretched

  • Duration: 0:49:28
  • Power: 358 watts
  • Average Cadence: 82
  • TSS: 76.6
  • Ride %: 100
  • Start line:  9:33 pm on Tuesday, January 29 (Because it’s Wednesday somewhere)

You have to wake up earlier in the morning than this to fool me. The tour route specifies that you must do Extra Shot before The Wretched. The thing is, there’s no warm up in Extra Shot.

It doesn’t say in the Tour guide that you can’t warm up..it’s just not part of the Tour.

Only a moron would jump into a 20 minute time trial without warming up first, so the smart money is on people who realized this beforehand and did a warm up before getting out on the course.

Surprisingly, I realized what was going on and did a warm up.

Not giving myself too much credit though. If I was really smart I probably would not have decided to do ToS. And honestly, I probably should have done a longer warm up. I just did 6 minutes at an easy pace, getting my HR up to ~120 and holding it there. But I started pretty late (9 pm), so I was anxious to get going.

tour_of_sufferlandria_2014_stage_5_extra_shot

I’d never ridden Extra Shot before, and I didn’t think it was too bad. Again, wish I’d been warmed up more, but this is another one of those rides that is sort of built for me. Actually, The Wretched (part II of this stage) is too.

Being completely honest, The Wretched is a pretty easy ride for me. I actually went back and reviewed the last time I rode it after I finished to make sure I wasn’t under-working because of some equipment setup was off. But it was just as easy the other time I did it.

tour_of_sufferlandria_2014_stage_5_the_wretched

Climbing on the trainer just feels good to me. My legs are still relatively big and strong, so pushing a big gear doesn’t feel like too much work. Of course, this would be completely different if I was on an actual mountain carrying my actual weight.

But no one is pitying me on the sprint stages when spinning fast just means moving big heavy legs around and around, so I’ll take my easy stages where I can get them.

The Tour itself is only finished with Stage 4 at this point, and there’s a 35% drop-out rate so far. I still think most of the people still in the peloton will have no problem hanging on.

Until Stage 7.

Previous stage reports: