Monday, May 30, 2011

Training harder to stop the drop

Legs felt pretty good Sunday after Saturday's recovery ride. As I got going I thought I remembered that I had 44k to go to complete my 700k monthly distance goal but could not decide whether to do 30, 40 or 50k. I could finish the goal and have Monday to finish packing for Europe or I could do two shorter rides. I initially decided to do 30 but when the turn came and went and I had not turned off. The weather was beautiful and the ride so pleasant that I guess my unconscious took control.

40K is was. As I was getting close to the end, since I was so close to finishing the goal I changed my ride again and decided to add the short sharp climbs I've put into my 20k ride to bump up the distance. As I approached the final turn it looked like I was still short of 45k so I adjusted again and went up Burke Mill/Griffith instead. I got home, satisfied that Monday was going to be a rest day. But, when I entered the ride, it turned out that I was still 3k short. GAH! Oh well, the weather is going to be great Monday as well so if I have to go on another short 20k ride to top off the goal so be it. It's a tough life but I'm willing to take one for the team :).

The ride itself was another strength training ride with heavy pressure on the legs and low cadence. After Tom posted on facebook that he had started training for July in earnest it upped my motivation. He was going to improve a lot in the next few weeks and if I was going to keep up, given I'm still slower, I need to improve more and faster to minimize the gap betwen our abilities and stay with him as long as possible this July. I know I'll be dropped but hopefully it wilI be later than last year and we'll be going faster as well.

Thanks Tom for that little extra motivation to improve so we can ride together longer this July. It is going to be fun!

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You dude -- we motivate each other!! Will be SO FUN to ride the hills in NC!! And maybe a level section too please??

DNA The Splice of Life said...

The road to the hills are in a valley so we can TT on them as well. I got you covered for all things cycling - Hey how about a TTT too! :)

this is our "BIG" ride:
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/35339776