600K Morisville (Raleigh) to Wilmington

Well, here is the good news. I set a new PR for 300K, making it to Wilmington in just under 15 hours; about an hour less then last month's 300k. The bad news - I abandoned the ride at this point. When I arrived at the 100K check point, my back started giving me problems, actually I felt it briefly on Thursday afternoon and didn't think anything of it. A sharp surge of pain originating in the L3-L4 region shooting through the left lumbar muscles. It is especially bad when standing on the pedals. Standing on the pedals is necessary to relieve pressure on the butt. Actually, I would have stopped at 200K but there was no phone reception and I kept moving.

Shortly after the 200k mark, it began to rain. A little background, the morning was sunny and warm. There was a slight wind from the south east. Once it began to rain it didn't stop. It was 4 hours of rain; almost non-stop. I would have been drier if I was in a swimming pool! It was pretty crazy.

I may have lost some cycling specific fitness recovering from the knee injury. I had a rough time keeping up with the main group and fell off the back within the first 15 miles or so.

How to improve:
I simply need more miles on the legs. The base is good right now but I will back off a little and build back up. I will be better, stronger and faster. Becoming lighter is a great way to improve also. Not really a priority right now however, I will keep it on the back of my mind. Discipline with the diet would make this very simple.

Here is the concept: improve power with the same amount of work. P=w/t or P=fd/t Using these formulas (remember physics class?) you can see the only way to achieve this is to improve force. The more newtons applied to the pedal, the quicker I will be. Easy enough concept; right?

Power - sprints and hills. Ride with groups a few times monthly. Also add squat and pistols back into workouts.

Maintain endurance - do at least 1 century or brevet each month. I have Jun, Aug and Sep planned already. Get to the mountains and ride periodically. In a nut shell, in the ultra distance world, endurance and efficiency are very closely related.

Practice riding with ALL gear. It is a little different and may have contributed to slower average speed.