Today around 25 members of Semas Racing did our annual New Year’s ride to a temple. ‘hatsumoude‘. The last three years we had been going to Narita-san but it is always very crowded and not easy to park 30 or 40 expensive bicycles safely. This year we put forward different ideas and Mt. Tsukuba was the best choice as we now have a pit-stop in Moriya at the new ‘Seo Cycle’ shop there. Some of us got the train to start from Morita, some came by car there and the rest of us rode the extra 30km to get there.
For me it was 70km each way for the day with the halfway mark being up near the top of Mt. Tsukuba.
I was shown a very good route from Moriya which I’ve committed to the memory banks.
From Moriya station we took a few twists and turns and followed the nearby Kokoigawa river till we got to as close as possible to route 45. Route 45 will take you almost to the base of the mountain.
Very easy. Even if you can’t find the correct roads you can see Mt. Tsukuba and most roads are parallel and get you there eventually. I had my Garmin but some had printed off the google map from the web and sketched the route in. Which was better than my garmin map due to it being stuck inside my old laptop that died a few days ago. I was in the process of moving the map to my new laptop when something inside burnt out and now it refuses to start.
Anyway….it was very windy, very cold and my lazy December legs were not going to cope well with the ride today. Not many of our racers were there, mostly our hardcore touring cyclists. They were going faster than I was prepared for though which left me with sore knees by the time I got to the top of the mountain. After losing trace of them for a few minutes with three hill climbs to choose from to try and find them again, I went about 500m up each road only to have that ‘I’m lost feeling’. My legs were getting weaker and weaker and my cold cartilageless, ACL-less right knee said ‘enough is enough’. And we decided to head home then or never. I thought I’d get back before everybody else and on the way back took some more video footage. About 10km from Moriya I saw them all on the other side of Kokoigawa river in groups of 3 or 4 or 5 bolting ahead. Ignoring my waving arms, I caught up to them and had to explain sheepishly why I had disappeared. I had actually emailed one of the guys my predicament so they wouldn’t worry about me, but he didn’t check his phone till I saw him at the finish line. Luckily nobody was worried about me or cared to see if I was alive or not. Knowing how capable I am in these situations of being lost at the top of a mountain in the middle of Winter by myself with poor phone reception and no food or water. I won’t even mention the huge wild fearsome boars that live there either.
I’m beat.
Stats Day 2 (dehydrated post ride)
体重: Weight: 87.3kg
体脂肪: Body Fat: 27.3%
基礎代謝: DCI/BMR Metabolic rate 1792
体年齢: Metabolic Age: 50
筋肉量 : Muscle mass 60.2kg
Physical Ratings: 2 (1-3)Overweight (4-6) Healthy (7-9) Too lean
Visceral Fat Rating: 16 (1-12 )= Healthy: (13-59) = Overweight
Bone mass 3.3kg
Today’s mileage: 140.89 km
Yearly total: 171.3km
Daily average: 85.65km
Daily average goal: 33.71km