"She was going so slow downhill, it was like she was going uphill!"

A couple weeks ago I wrote that my bike and I are now in a committed relationship.

Well, after yesterday's Wine Country Century in Santa Rosa, one of us sleeping on the couch.

If we were in couple's therapy, a session might go something like this:

Me: It's just sooooo hard. Riding a bike is so hard.


Bike: If you just go to know me better, and were prepared it wouldn't be so hard. It's like you don't trust me going down the hill---you squeeze my brakes so hard. And your cadence is all over the place--pick a number already!


Me: Don't judge me!


Bike: And the swearing! Why must you swear so much when you go up a hill?


Therapist: Ok, great work today. Same time next week?

I love my bike. I really do. And yesterday was just a bad bad bad day.

One of the things I like about having a blog is I can refer back to it and reflect on past experiences. This is the first time in four years where I have fully committed to my training. Four years ago I was training for Barb's Race, which is two weeks after Death Ride. Out of curiosity I thought it would be interesting to see where I was in my training around the same time (roughly two months until Goal Event). Here is an excerpt of the post:

The risk we take...

At the beginning of this month, something happened that deep down I knew would eventually happen:

I didn't meet my goal.

I believe the risk of failing is one of the things we have to consider when we set goals for ourselves.

This was in reference to a half marathon I did, where I was really hoping to PR. I was training like I had never trained before. I had done a 1/2 marathon the month before in 2:02 and was determined to have a sub 2 hour marathon. And I didn't. And I was frustrated:

The disappointment I felt in myself brought a thought that I tried to push aside: why bother working so hard if the payoff isn't there? This thought is what I call being in the dark place of running and teetering so close to the edge where drooling over running shoes doesn't seem as important as being a couch zombie zoning on reality TV. I feared that my tendency to not finish what I started would come back because I know my personality likes to take on things quickly but lacks the drive to follow them through.

In the end I reminded myself this was not my BIG event. That it was all in prep for Barb's Race.

So, four years later I am in the same place. Sorta. Which is reassuring because it means I am working my body hard. This is the point where doubt and freaking out should happen because two months is  not that far off, though in training that 2 months can really make a difference.

Ok, so on to yesterday's century.

Wait..before I get to that, I have to explain the week I had.

So, last Saturday was my 100 mile ride, which I blogged about. I have kept my plan to ride every day. So, Monday I did hill repeats with my friend Lisa up Mt. Eden. It was awesome! I had never felt that strong going up that hill in the 8 years I have ridden up it! And my legs weren't screaming at me after the long ride on Saturday. So, Tuesday night was two mile test with my workout group. The first Tuesday of the month is always two mile test and I was not looking forward to it. my legs were NOT fresh. We did our warm ups and then Coach told me to go. I hit start on my watch and moved it to a screen that would not show my time. I did not want to obsess about it. So, I decided to just listen to my body---see what pace it wanted to go that was still a challenge. No music. No constantly checking my pace. It was just me, my legs, and the track, It was feeling good. With a half lap to go I decided to check my time.
"Holy (expletive!)" I whispered out loud.
It read 19 minutes!
Last month my time was 20:52. My first run test of the season in February was 22:47.

I sprinted my heart out. I wanted to be under 20 minutes. I did it in 19:35. I took 3 minutes off my time! I was shocked. And elated. I talked to coach about it and she said why should I be surprised, I have been working hard. yeah, I said, but my legs are just tired. I didn't know they had it in them. To which she said it is good to work out on tired legs, i can pull from this experience when I am doing Death Ride.

The next morning before work a friend and I rode Montebello. It felt great as well. I mean, it is still challenging for me to climb 1900 miles in 5 miles, but it wasn't as bad as before.

Thursday and Friday were both light recovery rides so I trainered while watching bad TV. Dennis and I decided to make a weekend away for my bike ride. I drove to Guerneville Friday afternoon (ugh 3 hour commute--yuck!) and he rode his motorcycle there. We went to dinner and then crashed. I woke up the next morning and met my friends at the ride start. I decided to do the 200k.

I ended up doing 80 miles.

The ride was beautiful. There was a challenging climb about 20 miles in. It was hard. And my quads were shot. This was not a good sign. I made it to the first rest stop, ate and drank and then headed out. The downhill was intense, we were headed to the coast and it was very twisty turny. There was a guy dressed in a grim reeper costume holding a sign that read: "slow."

So my hands became one with my brakes. I went slowwwwwww. So slow that one guy on the ride was actually talking about me. It was after the hill when we were on highway one, and he was talking to his buddy (didn't realize I was behind them) "did you see that girl? She was going so slow downhill it was like she was riding uphill."

Ouch.

I shouted, "THAT WAS ME!" but he didn't hear me.

The rest of the ride was very pretty but my body was just not having it. My hips hurt, but mostly my thighs were on fire. People kept whizzing past me. And then I had a big old pity party: I am a slow, crappy cyclist. I am not good at this. What the heck was I thinking signing up for death ride, I am not good at this. I don't deserve to be here.

Yeah. It got dark. At about 65 mile I decided to do the 100 mile route and took the cut off. Except, it turned out to be the cut off for the 35 mile route. I was beat up. And I was disappointed with myself for not doing the whole distance. Why was this ride so hard? What is going on?

I talked it over with Dennis (who reassured me that 80 miles is nothing to sneeze at). So, right now I am going to focus on numbers: heart rate and cadence. The big leg muscles are doing lots of work so those little muscles need to engage and my cadence should be faster. I need to think about my nutrition because all week long I was hungry and tired. So, the good news is I have consistent working out as part of my routine. Now is the part where I have to fine tune things.

My next event is the Sequoia Century. It is a very hilly 100k and I need to be ready for it. I WILL be ready for it.