The plague of the yellow flowers has descended upon southern california... and that means bad times for me and respiration. Despite the fact that we've had little rain, the hills are alive--with the sound of labored breathing. I'm not really sure what they are... in fact, I'm pretty sure there are multiple varieties of pollen-y death, but they are here in force.
As far as I can tell, the yellow ones are the worst. Maybe its because they are the most common, but they are definitely the worst. They've been slowly gaining strength over the past few weeks, but now they are everywhere. I can smell them in the morning, just before my nasal passages close up. I would say that I can't wait for them to go away, but I know that when they do, it will be because of the sweltering summer heat, which brings challenges of its own. Oh, winter in California, how I miss you.
(P.S. Warning to those who may be headed to the Baldy Village area--don't even get me started on the plague of brown flies. *Shudder* They actually seem pretty harmless, other than being kind of nasty, but boy do they hurt when you crash into them descending at 45 mph)
Sunday 05/17: 78.2 miles, 4:46:02 (16.4 mph) Seal Beach the short way. Oooof. I definitely had low expectations for this ride, given that I woke up in the middle of the night in pain from the Ski Lifts ride. I had to empty my fridge of all ice packs and place them on my legs and take some advil just to calm the pain and inflammation. Somehow everything calmed down by the morning though, so off I went. It felt a little tired, but I just kept it super easy and it was fine. Felt loads better than last week's despite the fact that the Saturday ride was harder. Felt pretty good about this ride, and had some delicious delicious chinese food afterwards with the gang.
Monday 05/18: Off. Busy day at work, legs need a break after the weekend.
Tuesday 05/19: Off. Legs still feeling pretty trashed from the weekend. Also, insanely sleep deprived feeling. Blehhhhh....
Wednesday 05/20: 43.2 miles, 3:00:09 (14.3 mph) Angeles Crest to Red Box. This was a horrible ride, and I couldn't figure out why, until I came home and found yesterday's allergy medication untaken on the counter. Sometimes it doesn't feel like the Zyrtec really helps, but it just takes one day of not taking it to remind me how bad it can get. A normal person might take it easy on a day they didn't feel so good, but I was frustrated and cranky and took it out on the climb by raging against my tired legs. I was also experimenting with gear combos, and dropped my chain, which made me even more irate. I think I tired myself out doing weird little surges on the climb and felt kind of sluggish on the way home. Bah, humbug.
Thursday 05/21: 45.7 miles, 2:37:21 (17.3 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop. Tired. I really almost didn't get up to go on this ride... but I've already taken an extra rest day so far, so in the end I just couldn't justify it. For some reason I feel like the fatigue just never completely left my legs after the Ski Lifts. It wasn't a bad ride, I just felt like my legs had no zip today... and I was sad because this is the first Peter's Short Long Loop that hasn't been faster than the one before :(.
Friday 05/22: Off, shots. Travel to Colorado for the long weekend!
Saturday 05/23: 69 miles, 4:45:08, Peak to Peak Highway starting in Boulder, back through Nederland. The bad weather foiled the planned Trial Run of the Mt Evans Hill Climb route, but we got to do this awesome ride instead! Started on a really beautiful canyon path from Boulder, and climbed up to a mountain road that was optimistically described as "rolling" or "mostly downhill". It was really overcast and rained at one point, but I kind of thought that that added to the awesomeness. Peter may have disagreed. I felt a little uncertain at some junctures in this ride, but ended up feeling pretty good the whole way. I think I went more conservatively than I could have due to not knowing how much climbing was left. It actually felt kind of anticlimatic when the descent started. It felt like we were descending for a very long time, but the heavy ass steel frame was actually pretty sweet on the downhills. I was pleasantly surprised at not needing any (non existent) smaller gears.
Training this week: 236 miles, 15:08:40
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