The past week has provided, with a few minor exceptions, hands down the most perfect riding weather ever. This is totally starting to make up for the rainy days that aren’t as much fun.
Good week of training. Some intensity, some mountain biking and some long rides. For the most part though, I have been feeling kind of like my body is lagging behind me a bit. Not that much, but enough for me to take notice. I made so much progress in the first three weeks that I was here it was crazy. In my head I had made fake plans to continue improving at this rate and by the end of my three months here be the fastest...person...ever. RIdiculous I know, but it sure felt that way for a while. Although after my collarbone break, improvement tapered off a little bit, I am now improving more and more and taking it day by day, the only thing I have to come to terms with is that it’s just not at the same rate as when I first arrived. No big deal.
Having a blast with some of the workouts that I have been given to do down here. Since we are closer to race season, my intensity has ramped up and my long easy rides are starting to get toned down to only about two days a week now, instead of 4 or even 5. As far as intensity, on Wednesday, Laura was leaving so I wanted to spend as much of the day as possible with her so I had 2.5 hours planned. Did quick rip around the Saguaro loop and then took the long way to Catalina Highway (the highway that goes up Lemmon). I have a love/hate relationship with this road now because it is perfect for doing intervals on but well...usually when I’m there, im killing myself doing intervals. My ride home from there is about 15-20 minutes of cruising so it’s perfect to finish off rides there and get the sensation of putting in strong efforts at the end of a race. Killed it with some 40/40’s for about 20 minutes, then 10 minutes of cruising up and down the road, then another 20 minutes of 40/40’s. That second set of efforts is the one that gets you making silly faces as you are cranking away at the pedals.
Thursday was a bit of a bust because of how sleep deprived I was after Laura left. Her flight was leaving at 6:50 in the morning and because she was traveling internationally, it was recommended that she arrive nice and early for her flight. Needless to say, the shuttle came to pick her up at 3:15...EUGH. Even though it was a beautiful day I did two easy hours and then called it quits to come home and stretch and relax. Friday however, was awesome. I got a decent nights sleep and had some tempo intervals to do so up the mountain I went. 3x20 minute efforts were good. There was a bit of wind so it was hard to tell how I was improving because even though I felt great, my speed seemed slow for how hard i was pushing. The next thing I have to sort out when I get home is some sort of power meter. The more I’m training now the more I can appreciate the benefit of having that as an objective way of determining progress. It can get pretty windy down here and that can screw with your head a lot. A super windy day can completely destroy you emotionally even if you are pushing hard or make you think you are having a great day when you aren’t doing anything special. But either way, After doing my tempo workout up to mile 15 I came down, grabbed an Iced tea at the coffee shop and kept onwards to do another lap of the ‘east end’ finishing with a 74 mile day with lots of climbing and what seemed like a billion kcalories burned. I felt wiped but my legs felt great all day and this morning when I woke up at 5:20 to get my ass to the shootout, they still felt good. It takes me a long time to get to the university starting spot where the ride leaves from, about an hour or so. So theoretically, riding there, doing the whole ride to Madera and then riding home from the university would be a 7 hour day with tons and tons of intensity. Eff that. I have found an excellent formula of meeting up, pushing myself in the lead group till my heart feels like its going to explode, then riding home, usually taking a few detours along the way. Today was no different, except my legs exploded a bit earlier than I had hoped. Oh well, still got 4.5 hours in with what felt like a 40 minute sprint.
Tomorrow Im going mountain biking again. This time heading to what seems to be Tucson’s answer to the Don Valley trails. It’s called “Fantasy Island” and is something like 4 square miles of land but has 28 miles of flatish singletrack packed into it. Excited.
Oh forgot to mention that there was a guy at the shootout this morning who had old school Sport Swap shorts on. CJ, two first names for a last name and I were flabbergasted. New goal is to find out who that is.
Here are some pictures of the last little while.
Laura and I ate at this place near the Trek Store here in Tucson called the Guadalajara Grille. Holy smokes it was amazing. Here is Laura's meal.
On my first mountain bike ride.
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