We finally had decent weather this weekend. Most of the time I feel that the weather guys use dart boards to predict the temp, but this time they hit the bulls eye.
Saturday (45+ degrees) I thought about riding, but with roads still icy at 9am I thought maybe today would be a better day to run. So I ran. 10 miles. I figured I better start working on my speed (cause I’m slow) so I did sprint intervals. It took about 5 miles to figure out timing—I know why so long? Well, as always I thought I could do more than I could—I finally gave in when I almost couldn’t control my breathing and almost started crying due to the pain. I haven’t felt that bad since the State Road Race when I was on lap 2/climb #2. Anyways, I settled on 2 minute sprints, 1 minute walking, 7 minutes jogging, repeat. Lesson learned.
Sunday (60 degrees) my legs were sore from the run, but I was not going to let a nice day slip through my fingers. I skipped Spin class (sorry Matt) since I felt that I would only be giving 50% of my daily effort towards riding outside if I was going to go to spin—100% outside sounded like a better option.
I waited until the streets were defrosted which gave me plenty of time to figure out the perfect clothing combination and to rehash the mental checklist for riding. Clothing—check, helmet and gloves—check, check, water bottles—check, camera, cell phone, whatever-else-I-think-I-need-in-my-pockets—check, lube chain—check, pump tires—almost forgot. That’s what I forgot to do last time! Which is why all those little hills felt like mountains. Front tire: 60 psi. Back tire: 80 psi. (I usually set mine at 100 psi each) How could I forget? That’s right—I was too excited to get out on a nice day.
Tires filled—I was ready to roll. It felt like everyone was out in the neighborhoods. I saw more casual riders in one day then I saw all of last year. I went out to the Medina area to ride—I can’t wait until everything turns green again, but it was still great to be out there. I wasn’t going to focus on my speed I just wanted to ride—I noticed, spite the headwind, my cadence was higher than expected and was rolling at a decent speed, and still had a reasonable heart rate. I would like to contribute it to my cross training in spin class. See Matt, talking during spin class can help your training.
After a couple of hours the wind got pretty old--90% of my ride was in headwinds. It seem the couple of hard hills I did was straight into the wind. Who needs to pay to be in a fancy wind tunnel sitting on a trainer? Come to the upper-Midwest and you could have hours of outdoor riding for free! I ended the day with 40 miles.
It's 60 degrees today! Again another fabulous ride is in my near future.
Duluth stage race is my focus for the next couple of months. I’ve been hearing horror stories about this mega hill—so my focus will be on hills. Long gradual ones I’ve got. Higher grade of incline within a short distance—there’s where I need to suffer for a little while. I’ve got it all worked out—Afton here I come!
(photos to come)
No comments:
Post a Comment