Harvest Ride

Yesterday was the fourth annual Harvest Ride for Literacy. It's an awesome ride along the cost through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and back through the foothills. I did the first one as my first century and last year's with Stretch. BoW did the 66 mile ride last year and opted for the 55 this year.

Of course, since we had a heat wave last week, yesterday we had our first rain of the season. In addition to creating plenty of grimy, chamois-soaking misery for the riders, it also made the roads slick and washed all of the debris possible into the bike lanes and shoulders where I spent eight quality hours cursing the name of Selle Italia. This yielded three flats for me, including a slow leak in front that came after my second full flat in back. I admit, I swore out loud.

Obviously, this is more the domain of BoW, and I will let her fill you in on the details of the ride itself. 

Suffice to say that despite the rain and adversity, I was very pleased to find my legs and lungs stronger than ever and quite proud to finish in 6:13 actual moving time. Yes, that is hours and minutes. Yes, it is the fastest I've ever covered 100 miles. It would have been faster, too if Stretch had ever come around to take a pull when I wiggled my left elbow. 

The important thing to remember about why I am a cyclist is that it gives me license to eat. According to my computer/HRM/GPS/bike brain, I used over 5500 calories' worth of energy on that ride. Thus, I had no qualms about my bacon/swiss/spinach omelette with grits at the S&W this morning. Still, for a long ride like this, you must eat before and during. During is usually confined to easily digestible concoctions that deliver sugar and electrolytes in a barely palatable form. I always know that I'm not eating enough on the bike when they taste good. I prefer the Clif brand and use their products in solid, liquid, and gel form.

Preparation is everything for endurance sports, and eating is no different. What I do on the bike is very important, but without a good breakfast and a great meal the night before, it's all playing catch-up. For that, I like to eat a decent sized, nicely balanced meal composed of things I know will sit well. Comfort food is a good choice, and that, for me, is pasta.

I haven't used a recipe to cook pasta in I don't even remember how long. Why would I? Garlic, oil, herbs, three ingredients, good pasta, and a little parmesan is all the recipe you need. Here, the herbs are fresh sage (cooking and garnish) and flat parsley (garnish), and the ingredients are sausage, crimini mushrooms, and roasted red peppers. Too lazy to roast them myself, I happened to have an open jar after making pizza a week or so ago, and I was inspired by the news that there is going to be an exotic mushroom growing operation here in CA soon. 

If you go back up to the title shot, you'll see that wild arugula is indeed hot, and available at WFM as well as at the farmer's markets now. I only link to that blog because he failed to find anything other than that seed company to link to on the topic as well. Trust me, it makes a nice salad and goes well with an Italian table wine and some pasta. Get some.