When the weather turned hot, I ransacked my room for my mesh cycling jersey and found that I had left it in Denver--calamity of the world! For a person who owns exactly 2 jerseys, of which exactly 1 is for warm weather, this actually is a calamity...
Not wanting to do my long ride in the heavier jersey, and feeling like I've adequately demonstrated my commitment to cycling frequently, I decided to make a new purchase.
As it turns out, however, women's cycling clothing is 1) ugly and/or 2) expensive. Lots of pastel colors... and patterns... eeeeeeeee. Fortunately, I found a nice mesh jersey that's mostly white, and decided that for $70 less than the black pair, I could deal with a light blue pair of shorts that were on sale. They do go with my bike, at least... and I suppose I am a girl.
Sunday 04/19: 78.7 miles, 4:47:34 (16.4 mph), Seal Beach the short way. Wow, this was an epic ride. Other than the fact that I suddenly rode 30 miles farther than my other rides, I also crashed at one of the gates, AND I saw the largest snake I've ever seen outside of a glass box... it was towards the end of my ride, so I just had my head down trying to get home as quickly as possible, so I almost rode over it. I screamed like a little girl, swerved and then pedaled furiously away, visions of it jumping up and sinking its fangs into my calf swirling in my head. It wasn't a cute little garden snake... it was a thick, dark, squiggly thing about as thick as my wrist. Glaghghalghalhga....
Otherwise, I took it easy for the first section up until the Rosemead crossing, after which I somehow acquired a riding buddy for the rest of the way down to Seal Beach. So, the 16.4 mph is probably a bit inflated, but I did my fair share of pulling. The plan was to just go easy and at my own pace, but somehow the competitive instincts just took over. I didn't want to be the weak link. We must have been averaging 21-23 mph... it made the time go by a LOT quicker. I arrived there in just over 2 hours.
Unfortunately, the other guy was going home to Seal Beach, vs. I still had the return journey left. I admit I felt a little bit defeated seeing that I still had 39 miles left to go... but I had a gu and felt better. It was hotter and windier on the way back, but I was still crunching along at a decent pace until I ran out of water, missed a crucial water fountain and the last 30 minutes quickly turned into the last 45 minutes. The last few miles were really brutal, but I made it!
Monday 04/20: Off, unexcused absence... the alarm went off, and my entire lower body felt not at all recovered... then I rolled out of bed and realized that my right knee, hip and shoulder were now all sore and bruised over from yesterday's fall. I decided to call it a rest day and go back to sleep. Then I woke up and felt really guilty for not having ridden.
Tuesday 04/21: 44.2 miles, 2:44:21 (16.1 mph), 12 x RB laps with short bathroom detour. I did my penance for yesterday's unplanned off day... 12 laps of the RB, 7 of them without my ipod (it died) ... sooooooo boring. I felt pretty good though, went real easy, but got a little ansty towards the end and did a few a little bit faster. It was really hot already by 8:30 as I was finishing up, but I felt good.
Wednesday 04/22: 35 miles (rounded in honor of Brain's engagement!), 2:04:47 (16.7 mph), Encanto Park to a little ways up the 39 and back the same way. Some better temperatures! A nice day and calm winds, I felt inspired to go just a little ways up the 39 but I had to cut myself off, to avoid becoming even more late for work. 2 hours feels so short now, I was starting to get the same guilty feeling that you get when you only run 5-6 miles and it is NOT a recovery day. I felt really strong today though, especially on the way back, and I'm slowly approaching some decent avg. mphs. Still a ways to go, but it's good to see the progress.
Thursday 04/23: 45.8 miles, 2:46:00 (16.5 mph), Peter's Short Long Loop. I was pretty encouraged that this was as fast as it was, because I felt pretty awful in the morning. My L calf was cramping, and I just felt tired and worn out. Had trouble waking up, and felt pretty droopy for the first hour or so. Started feeling better after going real easy for about 80 minutes. I had to revisit the place where I saw the giant snake... fortunately it wasn't there, but the baby rabbits were out in force--so cute! Then I ate a large quantity of fruit and salad before ruining it all with 1.5 donuts and some candy.
Friday 04/24: Off, shots. In addition to not riding, I ate a lot of cookie dough and icecream at work and felt kind of ill. Things are not looking good on the weight loss project... though since I don't have a functional scale, I don't really know what the damage is.
Saturday 04/25: 58 miles, 3:29:12 (16.6 mph), Rosemead crossing via Encanto park and back the same way. This was a perfectly fine ride, from the functional standpoint.... but for some reason there were just a lot of irritants. I was having really terrible luck with the traffic lights, cars were really pissing me off, and then I ran into this disgruntling riding situation on the River Trail, with 3 other people who were intent on riding RIGHT in front of me. With the winds picking up, I really didn't want their draft, so I kept trying to go around them... but every time I would get some distance, they would go around me and then slow down again.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't seem to achieve a breakaway, and eventually I tired myself out trying to attack and just let myself be dropped, which at least fixed the drafting situation. Nevertheless, I felt irate and crappy about myself about not being able to achieve the breakaway... and had to fight my instinct to tack on an extra 5 miles to soothe the inner demons. Instead, I sped off back home, full of irritated energy to propel me.
Training this week: 261.7 miles, 15:51:54
1 comment:
I think there's a correlation between the presence of the giant snake and the baby rabbits.
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